Air-capture startups
February 23, 2012 8:32 AM   Subscribe

Three startup companies led by prominent scientists are working on new technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These scientists have launched start-up companies and attracted well-to-do investors — most notably Bill Gates — along with venture capital and, most recently, the attention of Wall Street.

Kilimanjaro Energy is the pioneer. It was initially financed with $8 million from Gary Comer, the founder of Land’s End.

Global Thermostat, a second startup, was funded by Edgar Bronfman Jr., the former Warner Music CEO and heir to the Seagram’s fortune, who put $15 million into it.

Carbon Engineering has Bill Gates as an investor. In an FAQ on its website, Carbon Engineering offers a “conservative estimate” of the cost of air capture at “less than $250 per ton” of CO2 and says that it will drive costs lower.

All three startups plan to sell CO2 to the oil industry who use it in the extraction of oil, pumping CO2 underground to force oil out. Most scientists say it air extraction will never be cost effective (needs to be under $100/ton), but these three startups may get lucky. To give a sense of the scale required, currently the atmosphere has 390 ppm carbon, to reduce it 1 ppm to 389 ppm would require extracting 8 billion tons of CO2. By comparison, a recent carbon sequestration project in the US was hailed for storing 1 million tons of CO2 underground. Many scientists believe the atmosphere needs to be at 350 ppm to be safe.
posted by stbalbach (53 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
From the Department of Wheel Reinvention:

"While the benefits of tree planting are subject to debate, the costs are low compared to many other mitigation options. The IPCC has concluded that "The mitigation costs through forestry can be quite modest (US$0.1–US$20 / metric ton carbon dioxide) in some tropical developing countries.... The costs of biological mitigation, therefore, are low compared to those of many other alternative measures". The cost effectiveness of tropical reforestation is due not only to growth rate, but also to farmers from tropical developing countries who voluntarily plant and nurture tree species which can improve the productivity of their lands. As little as US$90 will plant 900 trees, enough to annually remove as much carbon dioxide as is annually generated by the fossil-fuel usage of an average United States resident."
posted by kaibutsu at 8:46 AM on February 23, 2012 [22 favorites]


Kaibutsu is spot on.

These start-ups will fail and people will think it "means" something. People will think wrong.
posted by Glomar response at 8:51 AM on February 23, 2012 [3 favorites]


Three startup companies led by prominent scientists are working on new technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Hmm, interesting. Nice to see a company focused on taking the stuff out of the environment for a change.

All three startups plan to sell CO2 to the oil industry who use it in the extraction of oil, pumping CO2 underground to force oil out.

oh.
posted by Think_Long at 8:56 AM on February 23, 2012 [6 favorites]


"Plant a shitload of trees" isn't something people can get excited about and spin up into a huge PR/Marketing win, but it's the best solution not only from a pure carbon sequestration POV but also from ecosystem recovery etc etc etc etc. How many trees could have been planted through the investments of these start-ups?

Still, the solution isn't "clean up the shit after you've spread it all over the house" but rather "don't spread shit all over the house to begin with". How can we get that job done?
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:57 AM on February 23, 2012 [3 favorites]


There are some hurdles to effective tree planting, though. The biggest is that it uses land in areas that are dependent on land for agriculture to feed growing populations. Trees are cheaper to plant and maintain in the tropics; it would be interesting to see a study of tree planting costs in various parts of the world. As it is, tree planting repurposes land in developing countries away from sustaining the population and towards taking care of the problems created by more affluent regions of the world. This is kinda problematic.

OTOH, there are really interesting programs to get local buy-in for tree planting schemes, such as paying local farmers a yearly stipend to maintain tree covered areas. This supports local people and ensures that those trees that NGO X planted last year don't get taken out by the first person to come along and decide that the land was up for grabs. The trees generated are also sale-able as lumber once they reach maturity, which is pretty cool, too. Just so long as it isn't getting used for fire wood....
posted by kaibutsu at 8:59 AM on February 23, 2012 [3 favorites]


The problem with planting trees is that the business model is shitty.

On the the bright side, massive carbon sequestrian projects mean our big, capital intensive industry types -- and the finance types who finance them -- get to keep on keeping on.
posted by notyou at 9:00 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


I'll say this about Carbon Engineering and its founder, David Keith: Rich people with long careers in fossil fuels just freaking love to give lots of their money to David Keith. The article in question notes that Murray Edwards, one of Canada's stinking richest fossil fuel magnates, is an investor.

My pet theory for this is because guys like Keith tell them the problem is not fossil fuels per se, but just those pesky emissions. You fellas just need this Status Quo Extension on your existing engine, and you can carry on as you always have and not have to think about any of this one second more. I'll just need $10 million and maybe a staggeringly well endowed institute for the university so I can get started.

(Note: Keith doesn't actually run ISEEE at the University of Calgary. But it's another piece of this puzzle - a huge funnel for investing government and industry money almost exclusively in carbon sequestration R&D under the banner of "sustainability" and green energy.)
posted by gompa at 9:02 AM on February 23, 2012 [7 favorites]


Any recommendations on tree-planting charities to donate to?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 9:02 AM on February 23, 2012


Tree planting is a fundamentally different thing. The idea here is that C02 itself is valuable even though it's mainly thought of as a waste product. If they can get the cost of extracting it from the air under its value as a product, then they can effectively create a for-profit C02 recycling business. The fact that it costs more to recycle existing C02 in the air than it does to produce new C02 is a pretty common problem in recycling in general, it's why you can get money for turning in aluminum for recycling but not glass.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:04 AM on February 23, 2012


These guys are pretty awesome, but I don't know how to go about donating to them; they mainly take institutional support.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:06 AM on February 23, 2012


Hey everybody, let's prescribe the atmosphere a special pill. Win-Win! We can prescribe pills and the atmosphere is happy
posted by kuatto at 9:06 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


No mention of using Algae for capturing carbon?

I'm not at all sure why more people don't consider algae. It removes carbon, produces fuel and seems to be quite cheap. If the Oil companies crack on with algae research, they'll be left with something that needs cracking and distilling in oil refineries and this'll keep them in business.

Burning the resultant fuel pops the CO2 back into the atmosphere, but it puts back into the atmosphere what we'd be burning off in fossil fuels.

Anyway - Can't see the problem with it. I'm guessing there's some huge algae based downside I'm not aware of.
posted by zoo at 9:10 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


This tech is pretty cool. I'm glad they're trying to do this because I bet it will indirectly get us closer to lunar colonies as an ongoing concern. Also, I bet there is room in this world for an innovative, tree-planting non-profit startup so get busy.
posted by michaelh at 9:14 AM on February 23, 2012


It seems I say this every time we have a sustainability discussion. There are no magic bullets. We can't just tree-plant our way out from under climate change, neither can we just geo-engineer our way out by stripping CO2 from the atmosphere. We need every technique we can think of and then some. Improved efficiency, alternative energy sources, nuclear, CO2 sequestration natural and engineered and everything else.

One of the biggest sources of fuel for climate change deniers is the correct assumption that the those on the left will use the climate crisis as a excuse for ideologically driven social changes. If you really want to do something about climate change leave the ideology at the door. It's an unpopular view on metafilter but the best engine we have for getting things done at scale is capitalism. I think that taking oil money to develop technologies that might lead to a way of helping clean up their mess is a pretty good way to go. There are far worse ways for the money to be spent.
posted by Long Way To Go at 9:19 AM on February 23, 2012 [6 favorites]


I'm one of those types thank needs nonsensical visual aids for this sort of thing. If I were to build the Empire State Building out of dry ice, how many Empire State Buildings could I build from 8 billion tons of dry ice.

Followup: if I stacked the dry ice Empire State Buildings end to end would it reach the moon?
posted by m@f at 9:20 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


If the idea is capturing the CO2 from the air, it will be very difficult to do the capture reaction, and the compression required for storage, transport and injection, without using quantities of energy that generate more waste CO2 than is captured.

I suppose you could use "green" energy to capture CO2 for injection into oil wells that produce oil that is refined into fuel and chemicals, generating lots of CO2.

Hard to see how to come out ahead, really.

If possible I will take a close look at each of these business plans, but as I understand it thermodynamics is not optimistic about this.
posted by Glomar response at 9:20 AM on February 23, 2012 [4 favorites]


zoo: bioreactions are notoriously hard to scale up to industrial levels of production. What works fine in the lab under lab conditions may be almost impossible to replicate reliably and affordably when you're trying to make 1000x or 1000000x of it. Contamination or imbalance in the lab means you're out a litre of goo and a day's work. In the factory...
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:21 AM on February 23, 2012 [2 favorites]


Thanks for this, since I have a couple million burning a hole in my pocket, thus releasing CO2 into the atmosphere...which I gather is bad for the environment.
posted by obscurator at 9:22 AM on February 23, 2012


There are some hurdles to effective tree planting, though. The biggest is that it uses land in areas that are dependent on land for agriculture to feed growing populations.

That is not a major constraint that I've seen, or at least it is one that is already being pretty roundly addressed. As noted above (and in your later link) there are some trees/planting methods that can actually improve production, for example by slowing wind and/or water erosion, nitrogen fixing, reducing livestock foraging, or providing natural mulch (and let's not forget trees can produce food also). The biggest constraint I've seen/read about to tree-planting in developing countries isn't the repurposing, it's that you don't see return on investment for several years. And that's a problem for people who aren't sure they'll still be working that land in those few years - land security is a big problem in developing economies.

Admiral Haddock: I'm a fan of Trees for the Future.
posted by solotoro at 9:29 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


I remain very skeptical of the "plant a bunch of trees" arguments for carbon sequestration. It ignores the reality that carbon moves through a cycle. A limited amount of carbon does get locked into the tree biomass, but forest reach carbon homeostasis within twenty or thirty years, no more net carbon dioxide sinks.

The forest also has to stay there forever for it to be a CO2 sink. Harvesting a forest produces carbon dioxide and wood will ultimately decompose to CO2, by combustion or decomposition. It's very important to realize that with forestry, the carbon locked away as growing trees will get recycled back into the atmosphere eventually.

Forests put a delay in the global carbon cycle. They do sequester a limited amount of CO2 for a limited amount of time. Forest are not, however, a carbon removal technique.

Commercial forestry is even less of a useful sequestration technique, given it's 5- to 20-year harvest cycles. There is very limited amounts of land for permanent forests. Carbon sequestration by forestry looks of very limited utility to me. I'm fairly disappointed in the IPCC for recommending it so strongly.
posted by bonehead at 9:31 AM on February 23, 2012 [5 favorites]


Let's keep building coal power stations, come up with some tech that sucks some fraction of the CO2 out of the environment, sell it to enable people to pump more oil out from its long term carbon store and then keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't just leak out into the environment after we have paid extra for the whole business model. A good way to keep two fossil fuel sectors going longer with no guarantee of actual emissions reduction.
posted by biffa at 9:32 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


My idea: Build a million 10 foot by 10 foot greenhouses and send them into the atmosphere studded with plants. Nature has beaten us to the punch as far as designing a perfect CO2 removal mechanism.
posted by Renoroc at 9:38 AM on February 23, 2012


Sadly, it's not really clear that we could tree-plant our way out of trouble. Forests sequester carbon, but they also provide a habitat for CO2 and methane producing animals and insects. And when vegetation dies and rots, it releases CO2.

Obviously the world had a hell of a lot more trees 10 thousand years ago, even 300 years ago, but the world's O2/CO2 balance has been fairly stable through that time -- there wasn't some dramatic reduction in CO2 going on.

Now, there are lots of benefits to forests (including providing a habitat for animals) and I'm all for it. But we're still probably screwed if one of these pie-in-the-sky schemes doesn't pan out, 'cause we still sure don't seem to take seriously the possibility of not consuming so damn much.
posted by Zed at 9:41 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


New forests on their own may not be effective, but planting new trees and converting some of the biomass to terra preta would be an effective and long-lasting carbon sink.
posted by vibrotronica at 9:45 AM on February 23, 2012


terra preta sounds like it is on its way to becoming oil in a few million years. I suppose we could cut the trees down and bury them.
posted by dibblda at 9:49 AM on February 23, 2012


If you really want to do something about climate change leave the ideology at the door. It's an unpopular view on metafilter but the best engine we have for getting things done at scale is capitalism.

Sorry, Long Way, but the ideology's been in the room way too long for that rosy scenario. And suggesting that it was put there mainly by anti-capitalist greenies totally underestimates just how muscular and well-funded the defenders of the status quo are. These aren't just Tea Party denialists - these are fossil fuel companies with huge vested interests in physical plants and pipelines who would rather not see the business case fall away from under them.

If funding sequestration and other mitigation technologies was on a mythic level playing field with renewables and reforestation, that'd sure be a wonderful world. But in fact, when the Canadian and Alberta governments dump more than $2 billion into carbon capture research, they aren't matching that with $2 billion for solar efficiency and wind turbine design. When David Keith meets with Murray Edwards and the rest of the oil-patch billionaires' club to tell them renewables are a pipe dream and they should be investing in his sci-fi plans (he says this kind of thing, I've sat next to him on panels and been shouted down by him for disagreeing), they don't invite Calgary's waste-to-energy entrepreneurs to the meeting to pitch their wares.

It's not capitalism vs. The Left here. It's the engine of a certain kind of outsized, fossil-fueled capitalism defending its empire against any and all comers, from Greenpeace to Chinese solar manufacturers. The ideology of the status quo is a hydrocarbon ideology. It is incompatible with a green-powered world and it will not play fair to see who wins the most money and power from the job of cleaning up its mess.
posted by gompa at 10:01 AM on February 23, 2012 [18 favorites]


"The density of dry ice varies, but usually ranges between about 1.4 and 1.6 g/cm" http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&"The density of dry ice varies, but usually ranges between about 1.4 and 1.6 g/cm3" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_ice

The Empire State Building: volume 37 million cubic feet, height 443.2 meters to top of lightning rod -- http://www.newyorktransportation.com/info/empirefact2.html

"On average, the Moon is at a distance of about 385000 km from the centre of the Earth" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon

37 million cubic feet ~= 1e12 cm3

1 solid ESB ~= 1.5e9 kg
8 thousand million metric tons = 8e12 kg
ESB in 8 thousand million metric tons of dry ice ~= 5333 ESBs
~= 2310 km tall < 1% of distance from earth's surface to the moon
posted by jepler at 10:03 AM on February 23, 2012 [4 favorites]


.. or, if you prefer, arrange them in a neat grid system about 10km on a side.
posted by jepler at 10:05 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]




terra preta sounds like it is on its way to becoming oil in a few million years.

No.

Not even close.
posted by rough ashlar at 10:09 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


Overhead and profit-taking in the carbon offsets system eats up about 70 percent of what is spent on carbon offsets, according to a report from UK-based Carbon Retirement report.

Charities that operate like this tend to get the word "scam" thrown at them.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:11 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


Overhead and profit-taking in the carbon offsets system eats up about 70 percent of what is spent on carbon offsets, according to a report from UK-based Carbon Retirement report.

That's why we need a carbon tax.
posted by jedicus at 10:48 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


I'm not at all sure why more people don't consider algae.

Because it is expensive.

Cheap capital costs means land far away from energy/water/'food' for the open air ponds. Open air ponds - how to keep it with one species?

Go ahead - calculate the cost of enclosing algae.
posted by rough ashlar at 10:52 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


It's an unpopular view on metafilter but the best engine we have for getting things done at scale is capitalism.

And that is why 70% of the 'lets solve Carbon' doesn't go to solving Carbon. In fact, for every Euro spent on actual Carbon-reduction a Euro goes to investment bankers.

Blue readers know how good and just Capitalists firms like Goldman Sachs are.
posted by rough ashlar at 11:01 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


See my previous - comments - about this kind of wishful thinking.
posted by lalochezia at 11:01 AM on February 23, 2012


Carbon sequestration by forestry looks of very limited utility to me. I'm fairly disappointed in the IPCC for recommending it so strongly.

De-forestation is the biggest source of carbon I believe. Stinkbug biomass is second (argh!)
posted by stbalbach at 11:26 AM on February 23, 2012


Stinkbug biomass is second

Citation please.
posted by rough ashlar at 12:03 PM on February 23, 2012


De-forestation is the biggest source of carbon I believe.

Yes. The problem with many of the forestry CO2 credit schemes is that countries and coumpanies have wanted credits for commercial silvaculture, not for planting new old-growth forests.
posted by bonehead at 12:08 PM on February 23, 2012 [2 favorites]


Not to harp on the algae aspect, but there are a couple of random statements being thrown around here that should be clarified with respect to algae and CO2 sequestration:
1. Ned David, the founder of Kilimanjaro, was a co-founder of Sapphire Energy; arguably one of the three most successful of the major algae-to-oil companies. He knows full well that CO2 is one of the greatest costs associated with growing algae on a commercially viable scale. For the uninitiated, algae "eats" CO2.
2. Algae have been shown to grow successfully in open ponds with either heterotrophic and autotrophic inoculations; there are, however, problems with both. Open ponds = contamination which requires constant monitoring, but is far more cost-effective at the current state of technology based on full life-cycle assessments. The use of photobioreactors provides a welcome respite from the worries of contamination, but the overhead costs are enormous, as per rough ashlar's previous comment. That being said, algae is a commercially viable feedstock when grown in open ponds, it just takes a little more patience and know-how to watch out for potential issues and to be able to carefully control the nitrogen and phosphate inputs/outputs. Patience is a virtue in biofuels, and doubly so when you're dealing with cousins of pond scum.

This all comes down to the exceedingly important fact that GHG mitigation is one of the single greatest issues facing the current generation of environmental scientists. If Kilimanjaro can really successfully capture CO2 and feed it to algae, or apply it to any other use, its a major breakthrough in technology with ramifications that can clearly used for good and evil...but I'm hoping for good.
posted by Geekyblonde at 2:03 PM on February 23, 2012 [2 favorites]


I suppose we could cut the trees down and bury them.

Build wooden rocketships, aim them at the sun?
posted by jason_steakums at 2:11 PM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


zoo: bioreactions are notoriously hard to scale up to industrial levels of production. What works fine in the lab under lab conditions may be almost impossible to replicate reliably and affordably when you're trying to make 1000x or 1000000x of it. Contamination or imbalance in the lab means you're out a litre of goo and a day's work. In the factory...

It isn't completely hopeless. We do make beer and pseudoephedrine.
posted by Mitheral at 2:13 PM on February 23, 2012


.. or, if you prefer, arrange them in a neat grid system about 10km on a side.

So, to put it even more concretely, each 1ppm reduction requires approximately 1 Manhattan of solid carbon to be removed from the atmosphere.
posted by chortly at 4:45 PM on February 23, 2012


The most-discussed geoengineering technology, solar radiation management, alleviates a symptom of the climate problem (warmer temperatures) but does nothing to address the cause (rising atmospheric concentrations of CO2). What’s more, geoengineering as a climate response is stuck because governments have declined to provide more than token funds for research, and there’s no business model to support it.
Eventually we are going to have to do geo-engineering for real, the sun is going to get brighter over it's lifetime, enough to boil away the oceans entirely in 1.5 billion year or so. Think about that: Live has existed on earth for 3.5 billion years, the natural timespan of life on earth is actually mostly over already. Had humans not evolved, intelligent life may never have evolved before the earth at all, and life on earth would only have been a 5 billion year blip.
posted by delmoi at 6:04 PM on February 23, 2012


He knows full well that CO2 is one of the greatest costs ... The use of photobioreactors

So one is taking CO2 and making it nearly 100% - VS the ppm in the atmosphere. Then they are putting this pure CO2 + algae in a container. And THEN lighting up electric lights.

All to what - get CO2 out of the air?

Eventually we are going to have to do geo-engineering for real, the sun is going to get brighter over it's lifetime, enough to boil away the oceans entirely in 1.5 billion year or so.

Or by that time do what Man does when they trash a place - move someplace else.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:15 PM on February 23, 2012


"The problem with many of the forestry CO2 credit schemes is that countries and companies have wanted credits for commercial silvaculture, not for planting new old-growth forests."

Exactly. Planting trees in mass quantities is probably the best way we can buy our civilization time until we can develop better solutions, but it can't be done on a for-profit basis. As you said, those forests have to sit there for at least a generation if they're going to do any good, and the best places to plant them are in extremely impoverished countries. I think it'll be done mostly by developing nations and financed mostly by developed nations as a kind of international security, but we need a wiser generation of world leaders first.
posted by Kevin Street at 9:17 PM on February 23, 2012


If 1 manhattan per ppm CO₂ is too much for you, then put the carbon into a better form, like diamond. If the goal is to store the carbon from 8e9 kg CO₂, then break it apart from the O₂ and form the carbon into diamonds. Carbon contributes only 27% of the mass of CO₂, and diamond is more than twice as dense as dry ice (3.5 g/cm³). You can get nearly 10ppm per manhattan of diamond.
posted by jepler at 8:37 AM on February 24, 2012


plus, you know, all that diamond would make you fabulously wealthy.
posted by jepler at 10:02 AM on February 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Okay, so in terms of volume then, what's the equivalent amount of petroleum we've burned to raise the CO2 level as much as we have since 1850? Which Great Lake full of oil? Because that's a hell of a visual right there.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:36 AM on February 24, 2012


DIY Synthetic Diamonds.
posted by kaibutsu at 10:55 AM on February 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Planting trees in mass quantities is probably the best way we can buy our civilization time

Given wood from trees rots in a decade or 2 yet charred biomass can take over 100 years what is within human skills is to make biochar and bury it. Take the leftover organic matter from your existence and char it. (how many of you "ohhh save the planet from CO2" are doing this?)

If one wishes to extend the 'value' of the biochar, one can soak it in ammonia before burying.

Okay, so in terms of volume then, what's the equivalent amount of petroleum we've burned to raise the CO2 level as much as we have since 1850?

Right now - the consumption rate of oil is 1 cubic mile a year
posted by rough ashlar at 5:59 PM on February 24, 2012


http://www.eprida.com/images/Eprida_soiltest4.jpg

See the bigger greener corn? Biochar soaked in urea then buried.

Your choice - complain about CO2 in the air or make your own biochar from your own waste stream, pee on that biochar, then bury it and plant crops. (What?!?! Not willing to do that? But willing to support Carbon taxes that put money into Goldman Sachs? What are the Venture Capitolists like Romney actually doing to reduce CO2 in the air?)
posted by rough ashlar at 6:08 PM on February 24, 2012


...are you trying to shame environmentalists for not being farmers?
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:06 PM on February 24, 2012


I answered my own question.

337B tons of carbon burned since 1750 - http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.html

Now, a ton of fossil carbon is the approximate equivalent of 0.82 cubic meters of crude oil going on an energy basis.

So that's 2.5e14 cubic meters of crude equivalent. Which is 250,000 cubic kilometres.

Imagine Lake Superior filled with crude oil. Now imagine 21 of them. Now set them on fire. That's us!

How about the Caspian Sea, the largest enclosed body of water on the planet? Burn up three of those.

Way to go, humans.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:44 AM on February 25, 2012


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