Carbon Removal

[ken_sylvania]

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-env ... _permalink

Apparently this company named Graphyte is being paid to use energy to collect agricultural waste products, compress them into blocks, seal them to prevent them from decomposing, and then bury them.

Did nobody step back and think about the fact that this is like burying plastic or fiberglass?

[Pelerin]

Did nobody step back and think about the fact that this is like burying plastic or fiberglass?

Very curious what they’re sealing them with that is both impermeable to carbon dioxide and also does not decompose itself. Hmm… I do wonder what this “special barrier” might be?

Folks, they’re shrink-wrapping sawdust.

The process uses things “such as sawdust or tree bark that naturally absorb carbon dioxide.”

…

From the photo caption: “Graphyte uses plant material to capture and bury carbon.”

There’s just something special about hearing the VC marketing department explain third grade science: hyped up and buzzworded, not quite right but only vaguely wrong so it can just be waved away with a laugh. Innovation, amirite?

The better part is that the journalist doesn’t seem to have realized this and just ate up everything they fed him.

“We’re excited about this new technology because it is within reach for us,” Jill Blickstein, American’s vice president of sustainability, said in an interview.

We sure are, Jill. We sure are.

[Ken]

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-env ... _permalink

Apparently this company named Graphyte is being paid to use energy to collect agricultural waste products, compress them into blocks, seal them to prevent them from decomposing, and then bury them.

Did nobody step back and think about the fact that this is like burying plastic or fiberglass?

It is a fraud, just like "clean coal"

So much effort being made by the fossil fuel industry to try and avoid the inescapable reality that we have to stop burning fossil fuels in the first place.

[Josh]

Virtual every "carbon credit" scheme is a scam. It juices up financial markets, though, so it has the backing of big banks and, thus, big governments.

[Ken]

Virtual every "carbon credit" scheme is a scam. It juices up financial markets, though, so it has the backing of big banks and, thus, big governments.

In this we actually agree.

The way to reduce carbon emissions is to actually reduce carbon emissions. Not to buy and sell specious "credits" on financial markets for things that we should be doing anyway (replanting trees, sustainable agriculture, etc.)

[Soloist]

I haven’t seen someone actually use anything that uses less energy then it takes to use alternative forms of power to begin with. It’s irrational to compress sawdust using machines likely powered by coal or petroleum to save on carbon emissions. Hey I got a great idea! You can pay me half of what they get to cut the equivalent amount of emissions. Stop making the “coating” whatever it is, stop wasting energy compressing the sawdust.

Or even a better idea! Eco bricks! Build eco houses! Charge double for them and give people a pat on the back for storing carbon in their walls.

[Josh]

I've looked into a deal where you get paid to grow cover crops. Since I do this anyway, it would be nice to get paid for it. Also a deal where you get paid to let a forest grow (which I'm also doing).

[ohio jones]

I haven’t seen someone actually use anything that uses less energy then it takes to use alternative forms of power to begin with. It’s irrational to compress sawdust using machines likely powered by coal or petroleum to save on carbon emissions. Hey I got a great idea! You can pay me half of what they get to cut the equivalent amount of emissions. Stop making the “coating” whatever it is, stop wasting energy compressing the sawdust.

Or even a better idea! Eco bricks! Build eco houses! Charge double for them and give people a pat on the back for storing carbon in their walls.

About 10 years ago, we worked with a school district that was using styrofoam plates in the high school cafeteria but apparently came under conviction about the amount of waste that produced. So they bought a recycling machine that used low temperature thermal densification to turn those into bricks. I have no idea if they are still using that or what they ended up doing with the bricks, but the equipment company still exists. They claim you can ship the end product back to their processing center, "where the blocks are converted back into the resources from which they were originally produced." I doubt there's much net energy savings from the complete process, but the landfill might get a little less business.

[Pelerin]

In their defense, I have wondered why people are going through all the trouble to invent carbon capture machines when plants already exist. If carbon capture were actually serious, all you need to do is build a giant permanent lumber yard. Ok, fine, you can get plants that grow (I mean capture carbon) faster than trees, but the point stands.

[Ken]

In their defense, I have wondered why people are going through all the trouble to invent carbon capture machines when plants already exist. If carbon capture were actually serious, all you need to do is build a giant permanent lumber yard. Ok, fine, you can get plants that grow (I mean capture carbon) faster than trees, but the point stands.

Far easier still to just seed the oceans with iron. Although the long-term environmental effects of doing so are unknown: https://phys.org/news/2023-07-uncovers- ... ocean.html