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Entropy? Never heard of it. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by hsr@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[–] hsr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I don't question the working principles of DAC, or as you mention separating gasses. It's just that burning fossil fuels for energy would make no sense if you had to use most, if not all of that energy on DAC. And if you want to use low-carbon energy to power carbon capture, why not use it directly to replace fossil fuels? It seems to me that to reduce net emissions it's most efficient not to emit it in the first place.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Because stationary energy generation is the easiest thing to decarbonize, while other sources are much more difficult. Also some carbon sources are so disperse to practically track down. You going to hunt down every person using a diesel generator in Subsaharan Africa, go to their rural villages, and take their generator from them? Maybe, or it might be easier to just set up one big nuclear powered DACC plant. Then you don't have to deal with the practical and political nightmare of hunting down millions of low intensity carbon sources among the poorest people on the planet. Just let the poor village keep its diesel generator til they're ready to switch to solar. You don't have to go in and start taking stuff from poor people. There are lots of examples of this, low intensity sources that add up in aggregate but would be a political nightmare to try and stop. DACC shines for this.

[–] alzymologist@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 days ago

But, as far as I remember, major contributor to carbon emissions are not poor villages, but jet sets and their factories in poor villages exploiting the work of poor villagers who have no say about their air quality lest they lose their jobs like they lost their means to sustain themselves from farming. Indeed, just not flying for fun and not selling the oil and coal that do not really belong to them would be so much more technological than trying to get grants for things they do not understand (and waste them traveling the world on planes telling everyone they should invest in it too only to then burn the rest in taxes used to support oilgascoal industry directly or not). When you show perpetum mobile here it is totally relevant - that's how greenwashing works in terms of economy on every level, no matter what technology is being praised.

[–] propter_hog@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 5 days ago

That's why you power the thing with renewables. We have to switch to green energy; that's a given. But the point of DAC is we've already so thoroughly fucked up the environment that we have to also go further and start cleaning up our mess. Just switching to all solar power generation and electric cars would eventually work, but it would take hundreds of years at least for atmospheric CO2 to go back to normal.