Can we really suck up Carbon Dioxide?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Is carbon dioxide removal - aka "negative emissions" - going to save us from climate change? Or is it just a dangerous distraction from the action we need - cutting fossil fuels and building renewables? The truth is somewhere in between - we're going to need to remove some amounts of carbon dioxide, but we can't rely on negative emissions to solve all our climate change problems. So what are the technologies behind the headlines, and what do they mean for our future?
Support ClimateAdam on patreon: / climateadam
#ClimateChange
twitter: / climateadam
instagram: / climate_adam
==MORE INFO==
Why residual emissions matter right now www.nature.com... IEA overview of negative emissions www.iea.org/co... zero of fossil fuel companies’ land requirements theconversatio... Can farming create negative emissions? journals.plos.... On nature-based negative emissions www.carbonbrie... Nature can’t handle all this negative emissions:theconversatio... Is BECCS negative emissions? www.carbonbrie...
==THANKS==
Filming by Tamy Beyrouti
Warming map from NASA Climate Change
Thank you for not overlooking the food system.
charring instead of burning was missing from that list. where ever biomass gets burnd you could char it instead you still get abaut half the Energie, but you stabalize the carbon that was bound by the biomass
I was going to post the same thought. I wonder how much this can be scaled up and what kind of impact it can have?
@@acebulletman7389 my guess is, that under favourable assumptions we could make negative emissions about 10% of current emissions. but I included methane pyrolysis in that guess.
@@MusikCassette Sadly, with even the most favourable assumptions, that 10% by biomass capture and pyrolysis would require three times the total biomass presently on the planet to be afforested and harvested annually, which is a feat beyond our current capacity. The world could plant the equivalent of a trillion new trees worth of biomass by 2060, but that would take forty trees deployed every day for every person as a start, and then all that harvesting when the woody mass drops and dries up, expanding planted area by maybe 25%. And that would capture maybe 1.2% of today's rate of fossil emissions once it hit its peak. A lot of biochar to plow back into the soil to make terra preta.
We absolutely need direct air capture. Every dollar of direct air capture has one fiftieth the effect of the same dollar spent transitioning from fossil trade.
Cut 2% of today's level of fossil financing and licensing per month down to zero by 2030 as part of any drawdown policy.
@@bartroberts1514 I can not follow your numbers. They sound implausible to me. My guess comes from some back of the envelope calculations I did for a country that I had some numbers for. Do you understand the need to make generous assumptions to establish a robust upper boundary?
With an upper boundary of 10% negative emissions you still need to get out of fossil fuels as fast as possible.
about the implausibility of the numbers you brought up: When we talk about total biomass. As I understand it biomass on land captured around 25% of human emissions as is. your three times the landmass would capture 10% does not seam compatible with that.
@@MusikCassette I believe the difference in our calculations has to do with the words feasible, sustainable and recoverable.
If a 'solution' crashes biodiversity by taking too much material and area away from already stressed wildlife, then it's not going to be sustainable. The solution to that failing is to increase both conservation efforts and afforestation. Depending on country (Singapore will be very different from Canada, for example, for wasteland area that could be planted), the world can get perhaps a trillion trees worth of biomass (including ocean life) planted by 2060 without endangering wildlife diversity and that is practical to harvest.
Practical to harvest is key. If more biomass is planted than can be harvested, then a portion of that new biomass will decompose to methane, which amplifies the GHE of CO2 some eighty eight times in the first decade, and as a renewable resource therefore forever. We have to count the unrecoverable portion as a liability.
So yes, biomass planting is absolutely necessary, done right. But that necessity has tighter limits than without sustainable, feasible recovery of inert biochar through harvest. Every country's cases will vary.
Turning the tap down requires stopping the guy turning it up in perpetuity. We can't solve climate change without dismantling capitalism and its inherent need for constant growth.
Exactly commard
But capitalism isn't the hand on the tap turning it up: across four dozen captive petrostates pushing fossil trade by government finance, license and permits are all economic policies, and none of them allow the Free Market to work. If they did, fossil would have long ago gone bankrupt and been replaced by renewables.
Just about 1,200 public servants worldwide are the guys turning it up, in China, the USA, India, Russia, Canada, Japan, the EU..
Fire them. Replace them with steady hands capable of saying "NO" to fossil trade.
Capitalism with proper regulation and taxes is the best way. Governments need to support renewables, insulation, higher mileage cars, tax carbon, etc. .
I see where you’re coming from on this point… essentially a load of these “green policies and ideas” are picking the low hanging fruit
Agreed. Capitalism can't exist without economic growth, even 'regulated' capitalism (all capitalism is regulated, since it requires the state to enforce the rights of the capitalists). Everything about the way we run our economies and societies has to be rebuilt. We have hit the limits of a growth based society.
Actually it is an old Inuit proverb - "You can't have your kayak and heat it to" but its original meaning was lost in translation.
Global warming is doing its fair share to heat the kayak, though
Your videos have really inspired me. Over the last 5 years I have been working towards drastically lowering my household emissions. Firstly we became vegetarian, changed up our 2 petrol cars for 1 EV, we are now eat mostly vegan at home. My gas boiler and hot water cylinder needed replacing l, so we saved up for an ASHP and new cylinder. Also bought solar and home batteries at the same time. And most recently replaced our old gas cooker for an induction cooker. I'm happy to report we are a fully electric house now. 😁
That's awesome to hear - thanks so much for sharing! 💚
And a benefit to you and yours most don't think of: the more prepared households like yours are to go fossil free, the smoother the transition when your government catches on.
You are a shining example. You must have spent an absolute fortune in the process. Unless you are being sarcastic and made up the whole story. One thing you left out: A home car charger. Oh, and wall and loft insulation. Oh, and triple glazed windows.
I'm replacing my electric stove with a gas one no joke
@@kitemanmusic and having alot of money
I'm from india and i think Adam is doing great to make people aware of climate change and global warming....❤❤❤❤❤❤
It seems that the solution might be all of the above. Use carbon capture devices in areas adjacent to where carbon is emitted, to minimize emissions. Reduce usage of fossil fuels by increasing public transit and deploying more renewable energy sources. Put an end to single-use plastics products. Reduce the production of ruminants as a food source (i.e. beef and lamb), using pork, poultry, and fish in its place, but continue to develop lab grown meat. Also, plant more trees. We should probably be doing all of this and more to reduce output and remove as much of it as possible.
Its waaaaaaaaaay more about finding ways to make corporations and skeptical politicians accountable then sacrificing as much as possible our own private comfort. As individuals we surely should be conscious and not commit abuses but life is already so hard on the regular joe, the real problem is with capitalism/corporativism and dumbass politics.
Yes, thankyou.
Thank you Adam … For explaining something too many people blindly accept 🙏🏼
Great content as usual. I find the rhetoric around carbon capture technology frustrating. It's spoken about by industry and politicians as an alternative to cutting emissions and as primarily a technology problem. But as soon as you look at the problem from a thermodynamics perspective, it immediately falls short. Humanity has spent the past century dumping co2 into the atmosphere as a byproduct of our energy production, so if we want to reverse that we have to put in at least as much energy into the system as we got out of it. Technology can't beat thermodynamics.
If we can get renewable energy to power more than 100% of the grid, then the excess can be used to run carbon capture devices.
@@General12th Unfortunately, it's not that easy, first you have to replace all the fuels used in aviation, shipping etc. Then you must replace all the fossil energy used for fertilizers, then for steel production. Only at that point you can talk about excess renewables. We are currently about 30% of the 40% of total energy use.
entirely wrong - if this were true then plants would never be able to grow. carbon dioxide removal with Direct Air Capture uses a fraction of the energy produced by burning fuel in the first place and is much more efficient than plants
The IPCC is relying on carbon capture.
@@markotrieste Concrete and steel can be made without emissions. Shipping emissions will also go down if we're not hauling gas and oil everywhere. But yes, we'll need a fair bit of carbon capture, and that will demand an excess of renewable energy.
did you know that there's almost *fifty thousand* of you CliMates?! and almost 150 patrons supporting the channel?? if you want to join them, hit subscribe and head here: www.patreon.com/ClimateAdam
This needs more subscribers
I love the dialogue scenes you do with your alter egos, very good 👍
Yeah because if he had to argue with anyone who knows what they are talking about he would lose and look foolish. Do an interview with Alex Epstein about fossil fuels. WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
Having researched CDR quite a lot last year, I feel that Adam was a bit overly negative about its prospects (pardon the pun). There are many people ramping up really interesting techniques that seem to have many co-benefits. Biochar, enhanced rock weathering, and ocean-based solutions may all be a lot more scalable than implied and could also improve the soil, the sea, and reduce the need to use harmful stuff too. None of which, of course, takes away the urgency of moving away from fossil fuels at speed.
Requiring lots of energy doesn't have to make DAC expensive. The cheapest way to get enough energy 24-7-365 is not to build just barely enough solar and wind to provide the total amount of energy, and then enough storage to let us use it when we need it. Storage is getting cheap fast, but solar and wind are getting much cheaper much faster. So the cheapest way is to get enough energy all the time is to build enough really cheap solar and wind capacity that we're collecting enough energy almost all the time, and only need relatively-expensive storage for a few of the calmest nights. That means we'll have more than enough energy most of the time, including part of the time when we'll have a lot more. So we design the DAC to run intermittently, when there's excess energy. It's still not going to be as cheap as it would be to cut emissions sooner and faster than we're going to, but it's going to be a lot less costly than just letting the effects happen from the CO2 we've already emitted.
Yeah I’ve had that thought too and wondered if it might be possible to intermittently power carbon capture. Probably only worth it in the long term but we’ll likely need to pull carbon down at some point.
Currently Mexico is on fire. Central Mexico is burning up. Mountain cities that typically think 87 is a heat wave are hitting 100 degrees. San Luis Potosí has a max temperature of 87. It hit 122 F last week. Good luck everyone. It’s only a matter of time before those are the temps in the southern United States.
Please look into the work of Dr. Sailesh Rao of Climate Healers. His Animal Agriculture Position Paper proves that the only viable approach to slowing down climate change before it's too late is to end animal agriculture before we breech the most significant tipping points. Since methane is 130 times more potent than CO2 for the 8-12 years it remains methane, and since it has a short atmospheric residence, reducing its concentration in the atmosphere by not breeding animals into existence is the fastest way to achieve immediate results. Since we devote 80% of the land we use to farming animals, we could rewild most of that land and plant over a trillion trees to speed up CO2 removal. BECCS is not a great approach because these "forests for profit" don't hold nearly as much carbon in the soil and they don't help with our biodiversity crisis. If you care about our future, please be vegan and help encourage everyone else to do the same for whatever reason resonates with them. It's the only hope we have left.
Mesterjake17 has said exactly what I thought i.e. end free market capitalism. Reimagine what the purpose of human life is - to share all the benefits equitably and sustainably - and then adapt to that new way of life. The political will is what is almost completely lacking, and yet the alternative is the climate armageddon we are fast approaching. It is conceivable but it needs a fundamental change in our western mindset.
No the primary problem with ccs is there is little evidence it does very much to lower carbon emissions
I wonder how much carbon capture you can get with things like cover crops, no-till farming, and biochar with agricultural waste. My understanding is that it's economically net-positive in the long term and more resilient, so I'm curious how it stacks up on carbon sequestration.
Thank you Adam!
Please do episodes about the steel and concrete solutions!
I'd love to!
@@ClimateAdam 👍🏼👍🏼
@@ClimateAdam As you're an academically-minded guy, recommend the Geopolymer Institute as part of any concrete analysis.
Even if we switch off all emmissions tomorrow we are still grinding the ecosystems we require to survive into profit for capitslists
Capirslism will always be unsustainable no matter how 'GREEN' you make it the expectation of infinate growth is incompatible with finite resources
Revolution or extinction
I agree that capitalism has quite reached its end. Any reform it seems to offer is just to slow or easily reversible. We need radical change in our economic and political system (in the most peaceful way possible) with plenty of measures to not damage the lives of the people most affected by the changes.
Reduction through rationing while we transition to forms of energy which do not emit CO2
google precision fermentation ... frees up lots of land from cattle feed
- How is it possible a gas that is 0.0417% of the atmosphere doing so much damage? As you well said, the carbon dioxide is in a ridiculous small proportion in the air.
** Just to give a quick calculation, if we were able to extract ALL the carbon dioxide from the earths atmosphere, we would be able to gather it in a volume of just 174 square km, or a square cube of 5.6 km each side.
- What is the target that you'll be happy with? I mean, plants need carbon dioxide to complete photosynthesis, and since carbon dioxide is already pretty scarce, what is the target value, so there's also enough to feed all the plants over land and in ocean?
- Is there a possibility to confuse city pollution and lack of water management infrastructure to environmental damage? I live in a place that is devastated with floods, but it's because is lack of maintenance and creation of new water treatment and management projects and I know first hand what's going on, but every politician that is visiting after a disaster, is blaming environmental reasons.
- What is the exact mechanism that makes scientists to treat carbon dioxide as such a threat, since all life form in earth is carbon based? I stick to this, because I'm old enough to remember that the gasses that are blamed change from decade to decade. e.g. refrigerants.
- Where we will find the extra energy to power those carbon dioxide machines?
Look up ricin in the human body. With certain waste products you don't need a lot of it to cause havoc. Carbon dioxide is a waste product. Couple that with the laws of thermodynamics and you get problems.
Creating wetlands is the best method we have for fighting climate change and drought
And destroying them is the worst method. I can't figure out WHY here in Colorado, the Corp of Engineers continues to allow the destruction of wetlands in what little there is of them in our desert!
@@chinookvalley I also live in Colorado and it's interesting to see how all the "wild nature areas" are actually just gravel mining pits for concrete production along rivers. All of the original wetlands were drained and turned into farmland & housing.
@@chinookvalley In 2020 I bought land in a wildfire burn scar and have been working on high-elevation wetland restoration projects using beaver dam analogs ever since. I love all of the wetland species I find, especially the dippers
8:25 Brilliant ground VPN.
I appreciate that Adam didn’t plug any sponsors in this video, especially not those sponsors we see too often on other educational channels. ;)
Such an amazingly concise summary, and so well delivered. Subbed and liked, having watched the whole video.
welcome aboard!
Thanks for producing this Adam,great video! It would be interesting to see if carbon sequestered by the ocean, as a concentration step, could be captured and stored more cost effectively than atmospheric ccs.
Here's my (2nd) 50p worth: compost, compost, compost - all your kitchen waste and more. Good outdoor exercise and great results; wonderful soil amendment and a trimmer waist. What's not to like?
@Adam, could you do an episode on biochar (I mean a deep dive into it)? From what I understand, burning the organic fractions of urban waste (including poo?) plus crop waste and other biomass for energy....but using biochar kilns to do so....one of the biproducts, biochar, is a potent soil repair material. We see far too little about the soil microbial community's role in carbon drawdown and storage. Biochar is an exciting technology to help restore soils.
That is a cause really worth helping - thank you for your great work
I'm so glad you think so - thanks so much for your support!
Reducing emissions with a given amount has the exact same effect on the amount in the atmosphere as [actual] net sequestration of the same amount. That means, sequestration can't be significantly more expensive than the cost of reducing emissions, in order to be a viable option. A very large part of current emissions can be avoided, with solutions that will reduce cost over time, in some cases a lot, so relevant carbon sequestration has to be practically free to be financially reasonable, and also without significant problems, including being safe and reliable.
Reducing emissions, either by replacing carbon intensive power generation, or making things more energy efficient usually involves upfront investments, but so does CCS systems, (those that capture and store actual CO2) and they also increase cost, without providing any benefit besides storing captured CO2. So even from a purely economical standpoint, CCS is absolutely idiotic, if the actual goal is limit/reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, and will remain so as long as there are plenty of ways to decrease emissions that will pay for themselves, by reducing cost. For green washing, pretending to working on solutions to be able to continue to make money and pollute, that's another story.
For people that want to feel less guilty, I think paying for CO2-CCS is just fine, just don't expect that to help CCS develop into a significant part of the overall solutions. I'ts not likely to become useful for anything good except to buy climate indulgences for those that both want to, and can afford it.
CO2 being one in 2500 molecules in the atmosphere? Come on Adam, how old are you, we passed that about a decade ago! Seriously though, one in 2300 molecules, or so, unless we count water, still makes direct air capture fundamentally stupid, even just in comparison to utilizing concentrated sources. Especially when the CO2 is captured from "free fresh" air. If "direct air capture" was incorporated as part of indoor air quality management, it could at least provide the benefit of slightly improving indoor air quality, and reduce the amount of ventilation required.
And maybe it's time to start talking about the CO2 level in the atmosphere as heading towards 500 ppm instead of being [about] 400 ppm. It would at least probably make all kinds of alternative reality enthusiasts upset.
Algae!! I did a talk on Algae on "environmental coffeehouse" channel. Look up Sir David King's recent talks - he goes into his algae plan. Algae is 1% of land biomass equivalent yet 50% of photosynthesis on Earth!!!!!
Hi Dr. Levy!
Hydration is important!
The whole "talking to different versions of yourself" thing is super off-putting. Nothing against you, Adam, you seem like a nice fella. Just reaaaally don't like the format.
It is a scam
- Calls decarbonizing the power grid "easy".
- Calls decarbonizing steel and concrete production "not easy".
Conclusion: We're pretty fucked. 😂
Disgruntled Adam is a hoot!
Useful to use such a simple format to educate those who have not yet grasped the consequences & reality of CO2 emissions. Nevertheless in practical terms the world is stumbling along in combating greenhouse gas emissions.
In particular China is getting praised for its efforts, but in reality it is going backwards not forwards: (1) China is producing millions of mechanically defective & hazardous EVs (adding to depletion of finite global resources, & associated pollution) and actively dumping them on an unsuspecting & trusting world market, (2) China was also responsible for 95% of new coal power construction in 2023 - all without Carbon Capture and Storage.
Direct Air Capture on scale is a fiction. - we don't have the available land space to build hundreds of thousands of Climeworks-type gadgets, nor should we waste valuable energy & ore resources to construct them on such a scale for such a pitiful return compared to the scale of emissions likely for the foreseeable future (ie tens of decades).
The DAC technology is stuck at the stage of emptying an Olympic-sized swimming pool with a teaspoon, with little prospect of moving onto buckets.😮
This is like Godzilla meets Rodan; a Glorious fight between two science fiction monsters: CO2 and CO2 destroyers. Both fictional
as the Paris agreement is Fully thrown out of the window Like glitchy early 2000s computer showing lot's of errors to the player, Scientists are rushing towards geo-engineering. An kinda of matrix like way to trigger more cloud cover so earth doesn't bypass the tipping point above 1.7 degrees Celsius of preindustrial era, causing an worst possible climate catastrophe. So do you think that covering earth with White clouds would be only hope for keeping earth below 1.7 degrees Celsius? Should this be done?
"You see out of 2500 air molecules, just one is a carbon dioxide molecule, which makes it tough to capture those molecules. You need loads of energy, which means loads of money."
This is a common misconception about Direct Air Capture. In fact it is quite easy to capture CO2 from air ( plants wouldnt be able to grow otherwise) - the energy is needed to separate the captured CO2 from the sorbent chemical complex. Solar is the ideal way to do this.
If only there was a country that not only had an economic model not based on exploiting literally everything but put people first… and maybe like, they could also produce 80% of the world’s solar panels, 2/3 of the world’s electric vehicles, and more than 30% of the world’s renewable energy and we could partner up with them and maybe learn from…🤔🤔🇨🇳🇨🇳
What do you think about the Seafields Project? I lately heard about it and it gave me some hope... And here's some fun: Another thing I learned today is that when I'm reducing my belly fat by ten kilo, more than 8 kilos of CO2 go into the air! I can't believe it! Perhaps we could all turn ourselves into carbon capture storages like I already did! 😉
The drama around CCS is so cartoonish, because everyone instinctively knows it's not feasible, because it wouldn't make any billionaire obscenely wealthy - the prerequisite for any industry being successful under capitalism - but simultaneously it's the only alternative to ending emissions - which is the industry that IS making billionaires obscenely wealthy - so it's the only thing that could ensure those industries continue operating. It's the paradox collectively blowing capitalists' minds: the only way to save capitalism is to end capitalism.
Fossil energy carbon capture and storage should obviously be acronymed "FECCS". As in, "The fossil fuel industry is all out of FECCS to give".
In my opinion we need supplemental co2 greenhouses to progress carbon capture. Also it's a bit ridiculous to not mention MILITARISM. The U.S. military is the greatest single emitter of carbon, and their credible threat drives unsustainable militarism globally
... What's the limit on what the natural world can draw down though? When considering pro active management of landscape hydrology, wetland and coastal biomes ect? Why can't you produce food with better optimised watershed hydrology, patterns of cultivation and bio diversity of crops ect to draw down carbon?
I recently saw a video about carbon removal from the oceans (it could have been GeoGirl) rather than the atmosphere since carbon is more concentrated in the oceans. However carbon removal can never outpace carbon (awa methane, nitrous oxide & other GHGs) so slashing emissions must ALWAYS be the priority.
Has anyone compared anthropogenic carbon removal tech vs ecosystem services via the ocean, mangroves, kelp forests, seagrass meadows, peatlands, tropical forests & soils etc. Restoring these ecosystems have a myriad of extra benefits too!
Good video. Regarding some blanket statements about our food system, suggesting people "eat less red meat" is pretty counterproductive to the general population, in my opinion. Instead, we should encourage people to reconnect with where their food comes from and source their food for more sustainable practices, which applies to both vegetarian and carnivore diets. I'd love for you to educate your viewers on regenerative agriculture and ranching and the evolutionary role of animals and ruminants needed to promote our water and carbon cycle. Life begets more life. Thank you.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide removal and sequestration could only work with the most passive, lowest energy-input system. Otherwise costs render the effort worse than valueless.
What do you think about Terraform Industries? I recommend reading their blog, where they outline business plan and technical details of their DCC solution.
The energy profiteers see their job as producing profits, not energy. That is why they will walk out of the room if you mention energy conservation. No profits in that. But conservation would be the fastest and cheapest way for us to transition to a sustainable society. Before we invest billions of dollars into developing exotic carbon capture technologies let's go for a walk, ride on a bus, a bike, a train, or ride-pool. Park your car for one day a week, or two days. Hold your meetings on line. If we power down we can transition more easily, quickly, and at lower cost because we use the technologies we already have until they actually need replacing.
We would have reclassified internal combustion cars running on fossil fuels as "Net Zero compliant" and environment-friendly if we could actually suck up Carbon Dioxide at the tail-pipe.
Fossil fuels solves all of these problems that Adam talks about in the first few seconds. What is his PHD in exactly???
Don't worry Adam, all we need to do is create a super-energy-guzzling AI that will solve all or problems and provide us with amazing gadgets beyond our wildest imagination, and then maybe turn us all into paperclips.
Capturing CO2 to use in Greenhouses is a small help as growing plants like high CO2 (up to 1,000 ppm) Plant Trees and stop burning anything in air!!!
Not only are we failing to cut our emissions, we're actually increasing them at a faster rate than ever. Climate change causes migration, migration leads to politics becoming more right wing, and right wing politicians tend to roll back on climate pledges. How can we escape this vicious circle?
Why do they go for technology instead of just restoring ecosystems, which in a restored condition would take up more co2 than in the state they have been left, yes including having tons of relatively unproductive cattle that make only small income outside of subsidies, thus preventing trees from growing etc
I really love the way the American(US) government have gone about it. Legislating to put your money where your mouth is. Brilliant.
We are already at 1.5deg 🙄
Make a video that talks about the only (non tree) solution that can be meaningfully scaled: Ocean Liming the rest are a distraction
So it seems like the benefits of restoring natural ecosystems are less about carbon sequestration. There are so many great reasons to rewild, but we can't rely on them to undo the carbon emissions we have and are continuing to cause. The turning off of the tap will happen this century whether we plan for it or not, given fossil fuels are increasingly becoming harder to extract.
Hey Adam, can you make a video about green ETF's? I think it would be a great resource for people looking to invest their money in green energy
Lets use a huge amount of energy removing some of the harm of our energy production.
Wait...that math doesn't really work out does it?
As ive said many times. Dealing with climate change is now no longer an issue of can deal with it. It's are matter of are we willing to. The answer right now seems to be no we really aren't. That's what the last 40,30 and 10 years have shown me
Direct carbondioxide capture is that there is not any money to be made from the product.
Most food crops produce a lot of bio waste, so growing more food could be a winner if the waste is used to improve the soil.
In the real world, most "captured" carbon is being used to pressurize oil wells so they'll produce more carbon. Worse than no solution at all.
Simple, stop selling private jets. They are the issues, there are millions flying all over, and the poor pay the price!
No and I don't even have to see your video. Someone who promotes carbon capture is the enemy who is not interested in the solution. Lower emissions..
This is the most stupid idea in the world. Carbon Dioxide removal sucks! LOL
How do you know if someone went to Oxford?
Because they can't stop telling you!
encourage plant based food system, free up arable lands. Rewild and capture carbon.
Enhanced weathering? Skinny with today's news related to an enzyme that enhances the rate of activation.
Carbon capture devices give the atmosphere the succ.
Totally disagree on your China take. China is one of the richest countries in the world. It became a producer of goods by being one of the biggest polluters of the environment. That was a specific direction chosen by the Chinese government. You need to hold them to account. Instead, playing blame games only helps climate denialists gain more traction with the general audience. Plenty of poor countries wish to develop and plenty of them pollute. They should start acting like responsible adults too.
No one is interested in acting responsible. Everyone must be better than his neighbor.
Here are a few counter-arguments for the "but China" climate deniers: China is expected to reach peak emissions this year. Last year, China installed more solar power in a single year than the entire US in its history. Its cumulative emissions are three times lower than those of the US, while its population is five times larger.
Does China have to do more and ideally even quicker? Yes. But so does every other country in the world.
@@_yonas What I always find funny and interesting about China's energy transition is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the climate and is probably going to be one of the fastest in the world anyway.
China's only domestic fossil energy resources are low-quality coal, and like most autocracies, the CCP is really paranoid about everything. They're dumping everything into fossil-free energy as a security imperative so they can stop importing oil from the Middle East and coal from Australia. they couldn't care less about the environment, which is why they have so much hydropower and their manufacturing is still dirty.
It became a producer bcs western companies wanted cheap labor.
If we weren't greedy we would have seen where outsourcing leads us.
So he is right,we are to blame, industry and consumers.
And yet the per capita emission of someone living in China is much less than someone living in, for example, the USA. Why does an American get to pollute the atmosphere more than someone living in China?
no countries are kicking the can down the road and the co2 output continues to increase
Say less. Time to get dirty in peatland. Plenty of that in the uk ;)
Please do not forget breathing
Stupid thermodynamics is keeping us from being gods!
that is so Brilliant to know!!! *cough cough*
How do you come up with 700 americans emtting 10,000 tons CO2 per year? I mean that comes up to 40kg per day. I can't imagine people emitting 40kg C02 per day. Food and transport should account for only a tiny fraction of that 40kg, where else is the rest?.
this is based on the average annual carbon footprint from the latest Statista data - around 14 tonnes per year per person (compared to about 4 for the global average). this comes from many things: food and transport, heating, cooling, the products bought, etc, etc. I'm curious to know why you'd guess food and transport can only be a tiny fraction, though? beef (which is consumed a lot by US Americans) can have a footprint of 60kg per kg. A single cross country return flight can cause over a tonne of CO2.
of course it's worth noting that this is all based on *average* footprint, and averages get skewed by high numbers... and the US has some very high emitters.
Algae based quadgen makes the most sense. It's a liquid plant based biomass, so it's land efficient. It does solar, thermal, biovoltaic, and hydrocarbon fuel while capturing carbon.
in principle yes, but we did not yet actually grow the combination of Algea, that we need to scale algeagrowth up. And I do not think we will as long as we go for this with a proprietor approach.
@@MusikCassette you would definitely need to do it as a huge public works project
I’m asking you the expert: What is your take on solar deflection as a Band-Aid? As an engineer I have considered that putting solar reflectors in a stationary position at a ? distance from the sun. Only a small percentage of solar radiation deflection would have a cooling effect and buy us time until we get to a carbon neutral society. This may be a pipe dream but that’s how all engineering achievements came about. From a dream or idea.
Reflecting solar radiation using any method would indeed cool the planet, but would inevitably come with serious side effects, as the cooling it causes works differently to the heating caused by greenhouse gases. What's more, space mirrors is prohibitively expensive, so if we were to do this, we'd most likely use aerosols, which come with a host of their own problems!
"we need an area the size of India to ..."
Man, we can play a hell lot of trees. Urban areas, rural areas, wastelands (to make some desserts a bit smaller, etc.) These would work if done in concoction.
However we can suplimate with an enormous area even bigger than India with carbon absorbing organisms...like phytoplankton...in the ocean. The large ocean that already hass 90% less phytoplankton....
the problem with climate change is that everyone wants to make profit from repairing the damage. But we'll be devastated if we don't change this view.
Ocean heat stratification means there is less mixing of the oceans vertically and less phytoplankton. Phytoplankton grows where there are available nutrients especially from upwelling.
None of your examples actually turns the tap off. Renewables just make it less painful to shut down the fossil fuel industry, but by themselves, they just generate more extra electricity...
absolutely! in fact I made a video all about that:
th-cam.com/video/GUkByL8vq38/w-d-xo.html
I'm glad you presented the numerous options and drawbacks. You could have put more effort into explaining the storage suggestions and the energy required to do both the capture and the storage aspects.
That's touched on (a bit) in the CCS vid!
There is no magic in thermodynamics. There are exothermic reactions. you take atoms/molecules as inputs, have them react together to produce a new molecule and thermal energy. And there are endothermic reactions where you have thermal energy and atoms/molecutes as inputs and you obtain a new molecule as output. The reaction of Carbon and Oxygen is an exothermic reaction that realease a ton of thermal energy. Very usefull to extract work energy from the reactor hot source to the athmosphhere cold source with a part lost in infrared radiations to space. So splitting the Carbon Dioxide into it's carbon and oxygen atoms would require the exact same amount of energy, including the energy lost in infrared. Yes when you don't understand the basic mathematics of science every technology can be looked like magic. But whatever the technology that could be use to capture the CO2 that was release in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel you will need a huge amount of energy as input. Plants are able to do that but they use the more energetic phoons of visible light as input to do their biochemistry trick.
note that carbon capture generally captures (and then ideally stores) the CO2 molecule whole, rather than splitting it up as you suggest.
Great videos Adam. These topics have been obsessions of mine since the late 70s. I just discovered this channel a couple months ago and I’m learning a lot more. My main obsession now is why it’s so hard to get people to believe this science or do anything about this crisis which is now developing in the world.
thanks so much for watching and for your comment! and your obsession is such a core question with so many complicated answers to it (in fact I made a video a little while ago with every reason I could think of that we hadn't solved climate change!)
First time viewer. Good video , but not too crazy for your partner.
BTW The more emerging countries emerge , the more meat they will consume.
I have several videos on the connections between conflict, military, and climate change. not every video can mention every thing.
Another great video Adam! Thank you for making a complicated subject easier to understand.
thanks Karen!
Another great, educative video!
Take all the green away.? Yeppers.
Yes. It is called a tree. We could facilitate the greening of the planet. Nature is taking the lead and we should follow.
wow - life imitating art in this comment!
4:36 Would Ethanol and Biodiesel used in cars and trucks count as this? We are burning plant products.
At absolute best that would be zero emissions (and normally not even, because of land use change, transport, inefficiencies, etc) rather than negative emissions
It's called a tree.
Hey... so how much of our farm land is used for feeding humans meat? How much land did you need again?
Some work has shown that through changes in diet, food waste, and farming techniques, our food system could feed us all and become a carbon sink rather than source... At least in theory..!
Yes, but not fast enough, cheap enough.
What about geoengineering?
Thanks from France !