‘Largest ever’ carbon vacuum nicknamed ‘Mammoth’ goes online, promises to remove 1/1,000,000th of annual emissions with a hefty price tag

American Thinker ^ | 12 Jul, 2024 | Olivia Murray

[MtnClimber]

Have the greenies ever heard of these crazy things called trees?

First, the story, from a report out at The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

In May this year, on the flat plains of an Icelandic geothermal reserve, a gigantic vacuum cleaner designed to suck planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the sky was switched on.

The machine, called Mammoth, would not be entirely out of place on a Mad Max set. It will soon start extracting up to 36,000 tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere a year to be fossilised, locking it safely and permanently underground.

And, here’s some context, from one of my favorites, the Jo Nova blog:

In a world where humans make 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually the project will be able to remove 36,000 tons of CO2 each year, which is approximately one millionth of human annual emissions.

Cost estimates are said to be ‘closer to $1,000 a ton’ to remove the CO2. Effectively, we’re spending 36 million dollars US to convert one millionth of human annual emissions of a fertilizing gas into limestone rock we don’t need.

Call me crazy, but it seems like if the goal is creating superior air quality, and doing it as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, which should be the goal for any government or “private” (air quotes because this is crony capitalism) business, then the solution is trees… right?

I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again—this is not to suggest that high carbon levels in the atmosphere makes for dirty air as it’s a requirement for every living thing on the planet, and the lower the carbon levels means the less plant growth we have, from crops to grasslands, and from biodiverse jungles to kelp forests.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: australia; ecoterrorism; ecoterrorists; globalwarminghoax; greennewdeal; iceland; leftism; mammoth; vacuum

[plain talk]

Some info here about status of CO2 removal plants in the U. S. 15 operating and 121 in construction or in development.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59832#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202023%2C%2015,fuel%20or%20ammonia%20for%20fertilizer.

[GenXPolymath]

Iceland is made of basalt rock that mafic when you add an acid gas to it like CO2 you get a chemical reaction with the calcium silicates forming calcium carbonate and silicon oxide. Also known as limestone and quartz. This is exactly the normal natural weathering process of basaltic rocks exposed to rain and atmospheric CO2 just sped up by a million times or so due to concentration and pressure of the CO2 gas. Calcium carbonate and silicon oxide are stable over geological time so it’s locked away for millions if not billions of years.

[GenXPolymath]

Not per year over the life time of the keys here is rhe source of your number. Still a lot per jet.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-jets-contribute-1-mln-tonnes-co2-emissions-each-data-2021-07-26/

[cyclotic]

23,513 commercial aircraft currently in service worldwide.

I wonder how much CO2 was emitted producing the raw materials, building the vacuum, delivering and erecting it?

Likely more than it will ever remove in its lifespan.

[GenXPolymath]

“Maybe Bill Gates will buy their carbon to make fake butter, cheese , milk etc etc etc ,LOL”

This bulk.CO2 would be perfect for power to.X like the lipids that company is targeting. You could also use the CO2 to feed single cell protein bioreactor that are full of cells than can turn CO2 plus water and electrons inot balanced protein powder. Also use the CO2 to make carbohydrates sugars or starches both have been made from.CO2 water and electrons.

What do you have when you have a 30/20/20 mix of complete protein/fatty lipids/carbohydrates??? In pellet form...perfectly balanced high quality kibble for pigs,chickens or any other mono gastric think fish,lobsters,shrimps no need to make human kibble unless you are into that kinda LARP tinfoil stuff. Atmospheric CO2 plus cheap electricity plus pure Icelandic water = unlimited livestock feed in a place where stuff doesn’t grow easy. genius!

[metmom]

I wonder how much energy that thing takes and what kind of carbon output it has.

I planted several carbon capture devices this spring. Some that are useful. Eventually, someone will get maple syrup out of them, too.

[silverleaf]

That cover the emissions of a single volcano?

[metmom]

Gone are the days of the advertising I remember seeing on TV as a kid. "Trees: The Renewable Resource"

[crusty old prospector]

We just need a million Mammoths.

[metmom]

[TangoLimaSierra]

Maybe if all plants within a mile of this place died, they would understand.
Probably not.

[metmom]

As with any *green* energy device they produce.

[conserv8]

Mars has a 95% carbon dioxide atmosphere

(i learned that on Free Republic)

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I saw an illustration of a proposed carbon removal machine. It looked like a big square Badminton Racquet. On the illustration someone had wrote...Why not just plant a TREE?

[GenXPolymath]

This is exciting tech not just for the energy storage it only uses table salt and stores NaOH +H2O in one tank and H+ ClOH +H2O in the other. It will be the cheapest source of those two chemicals in the planet at scale. Why does that matter? When you expose NaOH to flowing air it reacts to form liquid NaCO3 + H2O that sodium carbonate just stripped the carbon right out of the sky for free for you all you needed to do was expose the liquid surface to the air. Running it down a piece of plastic a few meters high would saturate the liquid with sodium carbonate. Now combine back the original HCL in liquid form as H+ClOH + H2O with your base liquid in a sealed container. The now acid plus base results in the origin Back plus CO2 gas plus water the gas bubbles out like soda in its pure form ready for industrial use. This process would be the absolute cheapest atmospheric carbon capture on earth given the projected energy to acid and base costs of the flow battery adding in a few pumps for the liquid transfers and let the natural airflow do the rest. You could chose to do both have the energy storage system do it’s thing during peak hours off peak have it make chemicals to capture CO2 and switching back and forth is instant and reversible.

Having HCL acid in huge amounts real cheap also opens up the huge amounts of waste biomass to five and six carbon sugar production. You know the six carbon glucose that all plants are made for and every animal on earth uses for it’s ATP cellular respiration cycle. Glucose is the base of all good energy chains and can be used directly as metabolic feeds. Five carbon sugars cannot be used by monogastrics but yeast grows gang busters on it two products from yeast come to mind first is complete protein the other is ethanol.

NaCO3 can also be electrolytic split in a bipolar cell using electrons to replace the H+ of the HCL acid so you only need the sodium hydroxide tank for carbon capture and can use the HCL tank for sugar production. The secret sauce is no one had come up with a ionic membrane that could split NaCl into liquid output you always got Cl gas which is nasty stuff having the output of liquid hydrochloric is a huge advance.

http://large.stanford.edu/publications/power/references/chu/

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/10/flow-battery-table-salt-long-duration-energy-storage/

[PIF]

Mammoth, the world’s largest direct air capture and storage plant, is designed for a nameplate capture capacity of up to 36,000 tons of CO₂ per year. [ At a cost of $36,000,000 per year. ]

[PIF]

What happens to all the plants?
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They will be eliminated as they are made of carbon and hold lots of CO2. Plants are bad for humans, eat insects instead

[9422WMR]

“ Let us not be too hasty in condemning this action.”
What do you want to bet that this place is off limits to visitors and you have to take the government’s reports that this thing even works?
Talk about a huge scam! The bigger the better for these green idiots.
Maybe someday they will have huge wind powered generators that provide free electricity to all! Along with solar panels that eradicate valuable farmland!
Oops, we already have that nonsense and Houston is without power, still….

[GenXPolymath]

Maybe if all plants within a mile of this place died, they would understand.
Probably not.....

Easy trigger they couldn’t even locally depress the CO2 level below 125ppm needed to kill plants atmospheric mixing will restore the levels in a few hundred meters downwind past any of the collectors. These are a few dozen meters high at the bottom of a 30+ km atmosphere column over them no way no how will the levels be even detectable lower a few hundred meters downwind. Besides the oceans are at equilibrium with the air and hold 150 times as much per unit of volume it will take thousands of years even if humans stopped burning fossil sun shines today for levels to drop back to the 180 ppm at the end of the last glacial period. Sleep well the carbon cycle will cradle you in its glorious warmth.

[exinnj]

The amount of water vapors in the atmosphere is 10 times higher than carbon dioxide and its heat capacity is 10 times higher, as well. Who’s going to suck all these water vapors, given the inconvenient for green idiots fact that Earth surface is mostly covered by the oceans miles deep. They can suck as much as they want and what they want, it won’t affect climate…