This is neat, but comes with a couple of caveats:
-
Even if we can get the quoted 90% utilization (carbon reutilization is notoriously tricky to implement at scale), coal is still pretty bad for reasons other than emissions.
-
That ammonia has to come from somewhere. Somewhere being the Haber-Bosch process, which uses natural gas. Though you could argue this ammonia would be used anyway, just on different fertilizer, which is true, but the point is that this isn’t just a coal-for-fertilizer deal.
This could be beneficial where coal is, for now, the financially viable choice (steel and concrete), or places stuck with it for political reasons (specially with the US attacks on Iran and the oil crisis making coal the only choice in some places). Though I think it’s good to be a little skeptical about carbon recapture cause so far it has disappointed.
Mostly I don’t want coming to the conclusion that coal is clean now.
There are two types of carbon capture. One is at the source, as is happening here, which is actually effective. The other is trying to scrub carbon from the atmosphere where the math does not work. If carbon capture starts producing useful outputs then there is a direct economic incentive to start doing it at the source. Incidentally, there are other similar processes that are also very promising https://www.foodtimes.eu/food-system/co2-upcycling-feed-protein-china/
Carbon capture is fake it doesn’t matter where it happens. The only real way to get carbon out of the atmosphere is don’t put it there. Every “carbon capture” technology ever invented relies on people ignoring externalities which makes the whole thing non-viable. As @[email protected] points out the exteranlity here is that it needs ammonia as an input. Ammonia is in short supply globally right now due to the strait of hormuz. Why would the Iran war affect the supply of Ammonia? (Hint: it comes from oil).
Not putting it into atmosphere is precisely how capture at the source works. Carbon is the input for the industrial process here. Every bit that isn’t captured is wasted.
energy vs exergy
Wasn’t the atmospheric scrubbing just used at oil fields to inject into old wells to extract the last bits of oil out of the ground?
There have been greenwash projects as well. The numbers are hilarious, like they remove 50 tons a year. 🤣
https://www.deepskyclimate.com/blog/canadas-deep-sky-to-pilot-dac-unit-from-dutch-startup-carbyon
Yeah, I know the fact that politicians actually fell for that shit is insane.
I suspect they know it doesn’t work, but people line their pockets and then sell it to the gullible public as doing something about the climate crisis.
Idk loads of politicians are kinda fucking dumb…
there is that too, but greed and corruptions are big factors to be sure
-
