Did Capturing Carbon from the Air Just Get Easier? (berkeley.edu) 50
"We passed Berkeley air — just outdoor air — into the material to see how it would perform," says U.C. Berkeley chemistry professor Omar Yaghi, "and it was beautiful.
"It cleaned the air entirely of CO2," Yaghi says in an announcement from the university. "Everything."
SFGate calls it "a discovery that could help potentially mitigate the effects of climate change..." Yaghi's lab has worked on carbon capture since the 1990s and began work on these crystalline structures in 2005. The innovative substance has lots of tiny holes, making it "great for storing gases or liquids, much like a sponge holds water," Yaghi said... While it could take one to two years for the powder to be usable in large-scale applications, Yaghi co-founded Atoco, an Irvine company, to commercialize his research and expand it beyond just carbon capture and storage.
"Capturing carbon from the air just got easier," says the headline on the anouncement from the university, which explains why this technology is crucial: [T]oday's carbon capture technologies work well only for concentrated sources of carbon, such as power plant exhaust. The same methods cannot efficiently capture carbon dioxide from ambient air, where concentrations are hundreds of times lower than in flue gases. Yet direct air capture, or DAC, is being counted on to reverse the rise of CO2 levels, which have reached 426 parts per million, 50% higher than levels before the Industrial Revolution. Without it, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we won't reach humanity's goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degreesC (2.7 degreesF) above preexisting global averages.
A new type of absorbing material developed by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, could help get the world to negative emissions... According to Yaghi, the new material could be substituted easily into carbon capture systems already deployed or being piloted to remove CO2 from refinery emissions and capture atmospheric CO2 for storage underground. UC Berkeley graduate student Zihui Zhou, the paper's first author, said that a mere 200 grams of the material, a bit less than half a pound, can take up as much CO2 in a year — 20 kilograms (44 pounds) — as a tree.
Their research was published this week in the journal Nature.
And it's also interesting that they're using AI, according to the university's announcement: Yaghi is optimistic that artificial intelligence can help speed up the design of even better COFs and MOFs for carbon capture or other purposes, specifically by identifying the chemical conditions required to synthesize their crystalline structures. He is scientific director of a research center at UC Berkeley, the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet (BIDMaP), which employs AI to develop cost-efficient, easily deployable versions of MOFs and COFs to help limit and address the impacts of climate change. "We're very, very excited about blending AI with the chemistry that we've been doing," he said.
Another potential use could be for harvesting water from desert air for drinking water, Yaghi told SFGate. But he seems very focused specifically on carbon capture.
"Another thing is that we need a strong determination among officials and industries to make carbon capture a high priority. Things have to change, but I believe that direct carbon capture from air is very doable."
"It cleaned the air entirely of CO2," Yaghi says in an announcement from the university. "Everything."
SFGate calls it "a discovery that could help potentially mitigate the effects of climate change..." Yaghi's lab has worked on carbon capture since the 1990s and began work on these crystalline structures in 2005. The innovative substance has lots of tiny holes, making it "great for storing gases or liquids, much like a sponge holds water," Yaghi said... While it could take one to two years for the powder to be usable in large-scale applications, Yaghi co-founded Atoco, an Irvine company, to commercialize his research and expand it beyond just carbon capture and storage.
"Capturing carbon from the air just got easier," says the headline on the anouncement from the university, which explains why this technology is crucial: [T]oday's carbon capture technologies work well only for concentrated sources of carbon, such as power plant exhaust. The same methods cannot efficiently capture carbon dioxide from ambient air, where concentrations are hundreds of times lower than in flue gases. Yet direct air capture, or DAC, is being counted on to reverse the rise of CO2 levels, which have reached 426 parts per million, 50% higher than levels before the Industrial Revolution. Without it, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we won't reach humanity's goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degreesC (2.7 degreesF) above preexisting global averages.
A new type of absorbing material developed by chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, could help get the world to negative emissions... According to Yaghi, the new material could be substituted easily into carbon capture systems already deployed or being piloted to remove CO2 from refinery emissions and capture atmospheric CO2 for storage underground. UC Berkeley graduate student Zihui Zhou, the paper's first author, said that a mere 200 grams of the material, a bit less than half a pound, can take up as much CO2 in a year — 20 kilograms (44 pounds) — as a tree.
Their research was published this week in the journal Nature.
And it's also interesting that they're using AI, according to the university's announcement: Yaghi is optimistic that artificial intelligence can help speed up the design of even better COFs and MOFs for carbon capture or other purposes, specifically by identifying the chemical conditions required to synthesize their crystalline structures. He is scientific director of a research center at UC Berkeley, the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet (BIDMaP), which employs AI to develop cost-efficient, easily deployable versions of MOFs and COFs to help limit and address the impacts of climate change. "We're very, very excited about blending AI with the chemistry that we've been doing," he said.
Another potential use could be for harvesting water from desert air for drinking water, Yaghi told SFGate. But he seems very focused specifically on carbon capture.
"Another thing is that we need a strong determination among officials and industries to make carbon capture a high priority. Things have to change, but I believe that direct carbon capture from air is very doable."
Sounds like BS to me (Score:2)
"Zihui Zhou, the paper's first author, said that a mere 200 grams of the material, a bit less than half a pound, can take up as much CO2 in a year — 20 kilograms (44 pounds) — as a tree."
And what does it do with it?
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And how much CO2 is generated producing that 200 grams?
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To answer the second question first: you heat it to 60C and it releases the CO2 -- which you then have to do something with.
The first question: I suspect that the 20Kg of CO2 is the total that is captured & released over many cycles in a year.
The two questions that I would like answered are:
1) how much energy does it take to run a capture/release cycle? Hopefully generating this energy produces much less CO2 than is captured by this process.
2) what can/do you do with the CO2 captured by this stuff ? How
Nuclear sub or spacecraft (Score:3)
To answer the second question first: you heat it to 60C and it releases the CO2 -- which you then have to do something with.
Release it into the ocean or space.
how much energy does it take to run a capture/release cycle?
On a nuclear sub that isn't really a problem. On a spacecraft, I'm sure it can be made to work - solar is pretty good in space.
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Seriously? You've never heard of acidification? And you think (assuming the oxygen gets stripped off) those carbon ions won't come back down and make CO2 again? You're like the guy who leaves his fridge open to cool down his house.
OMFG
You do realize what the source of CO2 is for air scrubbing aboard nuclear submarines? It's the exhalation of the crew. That's an insignificant amount of CO2 to dump into the ocean.
Also notice that such exhalation is normally dumped into the atmosphere.
Also note that the CO2 of exhalation is carbon neutral, it a process that long predates industrialization.
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He's talking about life support CO2 scrubbing.
To answer the question you're actually asking, if you've got concentrated CO2 there are a bunch of things you can do to sequester it. Pump it into old mines or oil fields, turn it into carbonate salts and bury it, and yes, inject it into the ocean, although you best want to do that around basalt deposits that absorb it from the water, or into sediment in the very deep ocean.
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1) how much energy does it take to run a capture/release cycle?
Most of the energy is heat. At 60C, that can be waste heat, such as the steam exhaust from a nuclear power plant.
For comparison, the current DAC technique uses lye (sodium hydroxide) to absorb the CO2, forming Na2CO3. This is then reacted with lime (calcium oxide) to form calcium carbonate, which precipitates out of solution. The CaCO3 is then baked at 900C to convert it back to lime while releasing the CO2.
60C is a hecka lot better than 900C.
2) what can/do you do with the CO2 captured by this stuff ?
Enhanced oil recovery [wikipedia.org] is the only application for this technolog
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They wait until AI can talk to the trees. Then they ask what to do with that "stored" co2....
My only concern.. (Score:3)
Is that if we deploy this, people may think it's okay to keep polluting instead of continuing to cut back and reach net zero.
It's still worth doing but this is only part of the equation and it has to be coupled with continued advancements in numerous technologies.
Still pretty cool progress in this area and hopefully they can expand it to water capture in the desert as mentioned at the end of the summary.
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I agree, but it's a worthwhile risk. The lag between a reduction in CO2 output and a reduction in atmospheric CO2 is too long to wait, and the lag between a drop in atmospheric CO2 and global temperature is even longer.
It's taken us over 100 years to get to this point; I don't think we want to wait another hundred to get things back to where they were - and no matter what it appears we're going to keep on pumping out CO2 like our lives depend on it anyway.
And you know what? If we can deploy this solution
Re: My only concern.. (Score:1)
We will never be able to capture and store carbon at the same rate as it gets produced.
The industrial and economic incentive to produce carbon vastly exceeds the ability of our governments to raise funds to capture it.
The idea that it would be easier and cheaper to capture carbon after we produce it is mind bogglingly stupid.
Re: My only concern.. (Score:3)
That's why you need government to fix the failures markets can create. For example car emission control systems. They aren't what the market would create left to its own devices.
Re: My only concern.. (Score:4, Insightful)
On its own, the market would still have us using leaded fuel.
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>The idea that it would be easier and cheaper to capture carbon after we produce it is mind bogglingly stupid.
I disagree. If there's a material that sponges up CO2 from the air and all you have to do is leave it lying about (the atmosphere mixes itself so the CO2 essentially comes to you, though only in small amounts at a time)... so long as the manufacturing, deployment, and storing of such material does not cause the release of more CO2 than it sequesters, then it's a good idea.
It doesn't necessarily
Re: My only concern.. (Score:1)
So you think that if we tax, let's say, $1 per kg of CO2, that we'll be able to capture carbon for less than $1 per kg?
Strictly speaking that might not be a violation of the laws of thermodynamics, but I find it to be pretty close to magical thinking that the economics would work out that way.
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There's a lot of energy that has been stored in oil for free by nature. It would not surprise me (much) to find out that it is possible to include the cost of capturing one of the products of hydrocarbon combustion while keeping the overall process economically viable.
But I never said make the tax $1/kg or any such thing - I said make it whatever the cost of capturing the carbon would be. I consider being carbon-neutral mandatory for a sustainable planet (or at least only marginally above the natural back
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Natural sequestration processes are so slow we can consider them to be more or less zero compared to the rate at which we dig carbon up and return it to the atmosphere.
I would argue that it will never be cheaper to sequester carbon than it is to dig it up and burn it. We've gotten too good at doing the latter. Now, people usually respond to this "but never say never, humans are smart" and I agree, but then we're back to magical thinking: We're relying on humans at some future point in time inventing some cu
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Easier and cheaper than what? In the case of airline travel, carbon capture is the only existing way to make it carbon neutral.
When it gets to the point of only tripling the cost of the trip, Taylor Swift should offset 110% of her private jet's emissions with CO2 sequestration just to be first and burnish her image.
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Easier and cheaper than what? In the case of airline travel, carbon capture is the only existing way to make it carbon neutral.
Nonsense. It might be the only *economical* and *practical* way to make it carbon neutral, but there are electric helicopters and electric airplanes that are commercially available. The passenger count is small, which means the huge increase in the number of pilots would be utterly infeasible (without full automation, anyway), but it is at least possible, with the exception of intercontinental flights, and even for longer flights, it's still mostly a cost issue. Airlines don't want to spend that much on
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A possible path to zero carbon long range aviation is hydrogen generated by solar/wind. There are already existing technologies that can use fuel cells or hydrogen combustion to power short to medium haul flights, with long haul flights probably only a few years of development away.
The only thing stopping it from happening sooner is the economics, and the only reason the economics is stopping it is because we are STILL not pricing the cost of the environment into our economy.
It boils down to market failure,
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... worthwhile risk. The lag ... appears we're going to keep on pumping out CO2 like our lives depend on it anyway. ... [then] what's so bad about CO2 emissions? sequestering it as fast as we release it seems fine to me.
Link. [investopedia.com] (Oooh, look! Commas in the primary article!)
.. 11,397 ........ 5,057 ..... 2,830 ...1,652 ... 1,054
China
US
India
Russia
Japan
So: If numbers 2-5 completely use this completely, then we've cut CO2 pollution by half...with effectively nowhere left to go except Big C.
Half is great, but maybe we can talk to them after a successful demonstration and/or in production and see if they'll patriciate?
So this might help, but at all not solve the problem. Besides, it'll then suddenly be another
Re: My only concern.. (Score:1)
Americans: We are the world leaders!
Also Americans: We won't do something that's clearly the smart thing to do until China does it first.
Re:My only concern.. (Score:2)
Get real!
By 2035 China will be doing over 15,000. India well over 5,000. Russia and Japan about what they are doing now, maybe up a bit. The other developing countries will have increased. Think Indonesia, for instance.
They are not, any of them, going to reduce, and they are not going to go in for carbon capture. Because, very simply, they do not believe in any climate crisis or emergency. You can see this at every COP they attend. They invariably either block or dilute real reduction measures, and w
What's your goal? (Score:2)
Is that if we deploy this, people may think it's okay to keep polluting instead of continuing to cut back and reach net zero.
Quick question: what's your goal here?
Is it to force people to "cut back" on their standard of living? Or is it to solve the climate change problem?
Because if it's *not* to solve the climate change problem, then I don't want to hear about it.
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Is that if we deploy this, people may think it's okay to keep polluting instead of continuing to cut back and reach net zero.
Quick question: what's your goal here?
Is it to force people to "cut back" on their standard of living? Or is it to solve the climate change problem?
Because if it's *not* to solve the climate change problem, then I don't want to hear about it.
This. I'm really tired of the faux environmentalism that focuses on conservation for conservation's sake. If there's a reason to conserve something, fine, but if there are other ways to have the same effect that don't require a significant lifestyle impact, then conserving unnecessarily would be pure stupidity.
Ask me what I think about water conservation. It's a way to keep politicians from having to burn political capital on the desalination plants that should have been built thirty years ago.
Ask me wha
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Is that if we deploy this, people may think it's okay to keep polluting instead of continuing to cut back and reach net zero.
Or it may be adapted so people don't need to pollute to run their existing polluting machines such as cars or burners. You may need to empty your carbon when filling up at a gas station. We may not have to get rid of the fireplace.
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We may not have to get rid of the fireplace.
If its wood burning we shouldn't need to get rid of it either way, it's carbon neutral already. Its not geologically sequestered carbon (petroleum), its just temporarily sequestered while the tree is alive, before its consumed and CO2 is release from bacterium, mold, termite farts or naturally occuring fires.
Tech can avoid compromising comforts (Score:2)
Is that if we deploy this, people may think it's okay to keep polluting instead of continuing to cut back and reach net zero.
What IF it is really good and we can reach net zero, or go a little negative to clean things up, without cutting back on our creature comforts? Can't the developing peoples of the world enjoy some creature comforts that energy provides?
That's where your carbon is coming from today, not so much US and EU. Which is why, globally, we are producing more CO2 than pre-covid. Further cuts in the US and EU are providing diminishing returns. Either the developing world makes sacrifices or there is no net zero. Or
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"Continuing to cut back."
Pretty funny!
*crying emoji*
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I'm tired of tree huggers not getting the message: You're pissing into the wind if you keep telling people to "cut back". That's not a solution and not going to happen. You're just being annoying.
This is a scam (Score:2, Troll)
It'll delay doing anything about climate change for another 10 or 20 years. The worst thing is it is technically possible to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and because of that left wingers being the dumbasses that they are will hem and haw over the viability of doing it and oil industry shills will throw out a few studies that we will spend hours and hours and hours po
Accepting science means accepting its solutions (Score:2)
It's a scam by the oil industry to make us think that there is a ready-made solution that doesn't involve using less of their product.
Or science and engineering will solve the oncoming Malthusian crisis, YET AGAIN.
Embracing science does not solely mean accepting the data of bad news, it also mean accepting the technical solutions that are emerging.
It already did (Score:2)
Eventually we're either going to realize that and begin to transition at scale or we're going to degenerate into some sort of nasty techno feudal hellscape.
Right now I think it's 50/50 which one we pick.
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In the form of solar energy, wind a bit of geothermal some batteries and walkable cities.
Great, and here's another possible contributor.
Eventually we're either going to realize that and begin to transition at scale or we're going to degenerate into some sort of nasty techno feudal hellscape.
Again, I expect such Malthusian sentiments to fall to science and engineering. We've barely considered removal and sequestration, artificial cooling (ex sunshades), etc. In other words mostly prevention, little cleanup. I'm saying work on the cleanup too.
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Yes and no (Score:3)
When it starts to get pretty hot trees breathe less so that they lose less water through those little tiny mouths.
So you can't plant your way out of climate change. As temperatures rise the trees face droughts and they absorb less CO2 from the atmosphere in order to conserve moisture.
There really is no getting away from transitioning to renewable energy and walkable cities. You'r
Plant a tree- on Venus. (Score:1)
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No (Score:2)
The Rule (Score:2)
I think the rule for headlines like this is that the answer is almost always "No"