The Reality of Carbon Capture

The research on biochar is extensive. There’s been more than 15,000 published research articles covering biochar. There’s so many research articles, that there are now essentially meta-meta-analysis (systematic reviews of meta-analysis).

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[sethl]

I was hoping you would talk about regenerative agriculture. Rotational grazing, silvo pasture, water harvesting and wet land restoration. I believe these things could make a massive impact if done on scale. Imagine how much CO2 is held in soils if we just raise the organic content a few percent.

[kentgoeking]

What is also amazing about biochar, is that it preserves the cellular structure of the original plant, but now almost 100% carbon. This means a very porous carbon product, like a carbon styrofoam. This porosity allows it to retain water near the plant roots, retain fertilizer near the plant roots, and create a microbiome that really enhances plant yield. And it sequesters carbon. Great stuff!

[FirePrometheus]

Matt, I think a great subject which would've been good to explore, and perhaps deserves a whole separate video, is Regenerative Agriculture, Forestry and Livestock Management (such as Agroecology, Syntropic Agriculture, Analog Forestry, etc.) which aims to be productive while sequestering big amounts of CO2e.

[jonjacoby]

Extraction of co2 from seawater seems like a better option since liquid chemistry is more efficient than gaseous. There is also some companies proposing using co2 from seawater to make jet fuel. Please do a video on this

[PatrickSamphire]

While I'm not against any of these methods in principle, the potential benefits of them are tiny compared to the amount of CO2 being emitted. It concerns me when I see companies investing in them for carbon credits or carbon offsets rather than reducing emissions when what we need is a hard focus on reducing emissions, not propping them up. These should be extras, not replacements.

[Nighthawkinlight]

I am suspicious of the ability of biochar facilities to capture resulting pollution from burning inefficient organic fuels. The process is carbon negative but soot and tar positive. I'd like to hear about how biochar plants are handling that. I also wonder about low volatility tars that remain bound to the finished charcoal and if they have a negative effect on soil and groundwater. Spreading a poorly cooked batch of char could be equivalent to an oil spill. The latter issue is easy enough to solve with reliable QC but I wonder about the former.

[jonson]

Ive been interested in seaweed farming.
#1 I have read that there are multiple start up companies trying to farm certain kinds of seaweed
#2 Because as it seems depending on what kind of seaweed (and I suppose the amount) is fed to cattle, you can reduce their CH4 emission by 40-90%.
#3 The great thing about sea weed is that it grows pretty easy
#4 And theoretically it should be a carbon sink

[matthewlloyd]

Carbon Capture is not the silver bullet to keep burning fuels but a way to help repair the damage from years of use.

[greenblack]

Matt - I’d be interested to get your view on less complex and less expensive methods being pursued to capture carbon naturally via ‘carbon farming’ - using agricultural practices like no-till and cover crops, amongst other things. There are methods to verify the amount of carbon sequestered by baselining current levels then using soil agronomy along with data analysis to prove carbon capture over time. Along with providing the farmer with improved soil health, these approaches seem more viable and less expensive than the other approaches raised here. I’d be interested to see what you think.

[necrojoe]

Given that nearly every method has a "ticking time bomb" element, a time limit for the sequestration, I'm hesitant to consider these as any real long term solution, outside if where the carbon is being *used* and not just buried, or sunk in the ocean.

[paulfay]

I had a large garden with terribly heavy clay soil, and so I decided to improve it with deep mulching, or sheet composting. Over the last two years I have put tens of thousands of pounds of wood chips, grass clippings and really anything organic on this plot. I keep a flock of chickens on it which continually scratch and poop on it. So far, in a very short period of time, I have created a garden that veggies love to grow in. It never needs to be tilled, or weeded...rarely requires watering, and needs no fertilizer or soil amendments of any kind.
I have also read that this process also sequesters carbon, but I can't find any information on how much. If anyone has any data on this, I would love to see it.

[TheHipClip]

Using nuclear power would reduce CO2 emissions drastically. It's always fossil fuels vs renewables, not what actually is the most efficient and best atm.
Fear of possible nuclear disasters is causing actual climate change disasters.

[johnboi]

I’m a strong believer in the convergence of biochar, anaerobic digestion and vermiculture to work in synchronicity towards increasing carbon sequestration as well as improving soil health. I don’t think there will be a silver bullet towards carbon capture but multiple industries working in sync towards the same goal.

[logicalfundy]

I think some people in the comments are getting the wrong idea with carbon capture. The idea is not to rid ourselves completely of the evil CO2 molecule in the atmosphere. In fact, doing so would kill the planet, as the carbon cycle is what keeps everything alive. Earth organisms are, after all, carbon-based. We still need carbon to enter and leave the atmosphere as a part of the carbon cycle - we just need to keep more of it on the planet and less of it in the atmosphere. It's actually okay for it to enter the atmosphere again - as long as we can keep enough of it out of the atmosphere at any given time to ensure we're not at risk of a climate crisis.

[gordontheman]

The solution:
-E-fuel made from Co2 and water. Completely Carbon neutral.(no dirty EV batteries)
-tax stuff to fund Co2 capture.(The tax must fund Co2 capture to take out more than what the product emitted)
-get electricity from renewable sources.

[metasaman]

Feedback: It would make more sense to me to see relative numbers instead of absolute numbers. Usually I can't relate to something like 20t of CO2.

[ASkippingRock]

Biochar is particularly useful in poor soils occuring in the tropics and heavy clay soils. In heavy clay soils it actually improves soil structure, breaking up the clay layers making it easier for cultivation. In the northeast US we don't have any native earthworms. They were killed by the ice age and haven't made it back north yet. Our soils were built on fungal and bacterial decomposition. I don't know how biochar effects them but it largely beneficial to plant growth.

[lewisblack]

Did I hear 6:53 that its bad for Earthworms? I'd need that study... Such a drastic changes to our environment, in hopes of reducing carbon outside of limiting/altering our use without knowing its impact, sounds wreckless.

[benjaminmuscat]

Along the lines of using aggregate, etc. To sequester carbon, I work in the steelmaking industry, specifically on the metallurgical slag handling side, and we are currently supporting research into the use of steel slags and/or other materials) for both carbon sequestering as well as forming a calcium carbonate product which can then be used as a limestone replacement - so it's using a recovered resource to start, mitigating the need to quarry material, but it is also providing a useful end product which again can supplement limited quarried resources. In this scenario, the carbon capture almost takes a back seat to the financial benefits of taking an under utilised low value material and turning it into a mid to high value matierial which is desirable for other industrial applications.

[danielgregory]

What do you think of the permanence of biochar? I haven’t seen many papers showing that putting biochar in the soil is a good carbon sink over a timescale of decades or longer. Good for farming but not good for a long term solution. Happy to be proved wrong