So why can/do we not capture the CO2 directly where it is released? For example for cars directly at the exhaust? Or for coal power plants at the chillen? Wouldn‘t it be much more effective to capture the CO2 there instead of trying to filter it out of the atmosphere?
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Yes, the higher concentration at the source does make the process significantly less unfavorable and that’s how most proposals suggest we do it.
Probably not practical on cars (too much weight), but it makes more sense on things like cement kilns or power plants.
Still tough and costs energy, but a lot better than just going at the bulk atmosphere.
Google carbon capture and sequestration. What you are suggesting is a thing for stationary sources. We just don’t have a business model for doing it. We don’t have a use for large pools of stored CO2 or a carbon tax to incentivize storing it.
because carbon sequestration is extremely cost prohibitive. Everyone says they want to save the environment all the way up until they see the price tag and the things it requires giving up.
Thunderf00t recently did a good explainer on this. Don’t love all of his content but the science stuff is spot on (PhD research scientist, so the science is accurate)
Fossil fuel power plants work using a chemical reaction between hydrocarbons and oxygen to produce energy. In order to fix the carbon produced back into another form than CO2 would invariably require more energy than the power plant produces rendering the process pointless.
The primary way of capturing CO2 from the atmosphere is condensation. You take in atmospheric air and use cryogenics to cool it down and you remove different gasses as they condense out of the air. Thats not possible for a mobile vehicle and not possible for the quantities that a power plant produces (you’d have to capture the extremely hot air in a tank then give it enough time to condense, not really possible in an open system like a power plant).
Also, its costly and doesn’t make sense for simply removing gasses from the atmosphere. We use this process because we use the various gasses for industrial purposes.
1. Cost. Catching, handling and disposing of all the waste gas is expensive. Put it on a car and, rough guess, 5x the cost of fuel. If it even works.
2. What do we do with it? Remember, we’re taking every atom of carbon we burn and adding 2 oxygen atoms to it. Effectively we have created 200% more waste than input. *We have nowhere to put it all*
3. Wasting even more energy to handle the waste. Gas companies are going to love this.
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