CO₂ shortage: why can't we just pull carbon dioxide out of the air?
CO₂ shortage: why can't we just pull carbon dioxide out of the air?
Technology exists to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but it has a big cost.
The title doesn't capture very well that this is about using CO₂ for bubbling water and similar food usages...
Apart from singling out the CO2 molecules, the problem is that while burning of hydrocarbons releases energy and CO2, the reverse is possible (plants do it, duh) but takes at least as much energy. Also, storing those hydrocarbons somewhere people won't find and burn them to extract their cheap energy.
In nature, the process takes place over millions of years in peat bogs and oceans but we’ve been doing the reverse for centuries to literally fuel our industrial progress. It will take a sustained effort for at least as long to undo these years of damage. Meanwhile, we can try blocking the Sun with chemicals in the upper atmosphere or something.
It's also important to understand practically all of the oil is from a time before anything was eating trees. Hundreds of millions of years of solar energy are stored in the earth and we've been digging it up and burning millions of years worth in about 200
Here's a great video that I found very helpful to understand what Earth's carbon cycle is like and why we need to quick ducking around because we're just now at the very beginning of the find out stage.
This is incorrect. The energy released by burning hydrocarbons is not the same as the energy required to convert carbon dioxide into biomass. The difference is that biomass has lower energy density than hydrocarbons.
The rate at which we burned fuel and the rate at which we undo the damage are not linked. We can remove carbon dioxide either faster or slower as we collectively choose.
Yes, biomass is not coal & oil yet, time and pressure are required for that. We can choose the rate of carbon capture, sure, but storing it faster requires more power and effort. In fact, it is recommended to first try to avoid releasing more CO2 where possible.
This makes total sense- I was thinking co2 for drinks was direct air capture, but clearly that’s $$$. I think I was confusing with liquid nitrogen- so that means dry ice is constrained by the same co2 supply constraints, I’m surprised it’s not more expensive.