Graphyte, a new company incubated by Bill Gates’s investment group Breakthrough Energy Ventures, announced Monday that it has created a method for turning bits of wood chips and rice hulls into low-cost, dehydrated chunks of plant matter. Those blocks of carbon-laden plant matter — which look a bit like shoe-box sized Lego blocks — can then be buried deep underground for hundreds of years.

  • silence7OPM
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    8 months ago

    Even at their price, it’s almost always cheaper to not emit in the first place. Once we’ve got emissions down near zero, tools like this can help to slowly get things back near where they were

    • PoisonedPrisonPanda@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 months ago

      Yes and get emissions down to zero needs to capture carbon at the emitters.

      Can then be sequestrated. Or stored, a better term for large scale sequestration.

      • silence7OPM
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        8 months ago

        No, it means not burning stuff in the first place which is what’s far cheaper.

        • PoisonedPrisonPanda@discuss.tchncs.de
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          8 months ago

          This is what utopia calls for.

          But it will not happen anywhere near a timeline to conduct climate crisis changes.

          Period.

          Thats the same delusional argument as “take down half of humanity - problem solved”

          Edit: it reads far more aggressive than I meant it. Ill apologize in advance.

          I agree obsiously on the port if not burning stuff for nee things. But existing industry wont got away anytime soon.

          • silence7OPM
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            8 months ago

            The high cost of CCS means that almost all for-profit business faced with a choice between installing it and replacing their facilities with new ones which don’t burn stuff is going to end up doing the latter. There are a handful of exceptions where the high operating cost of CCS might make it worthwhile, but they’re a minority of what needs doing.

            • Sonori@beehaw.org
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              8 months ago

              To be fair, there are things like concrete production where the process itself inherently produces large amounts of carbon where capture might help, but yes, in general if there is a choice between a process that produces carbon and a more expensive one that doesn’t the one that doesn’t will still be cheaper than capture.