You Can Own a Backyard Direct Air Capture Plant for $750k | Hacker News Reader

You Can Own a Backyard Direct Air Capture Plant for $750k

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I don't understand how it could ever make sense to capture dilute CO2 from the atmosphere when there is concentrated co2 being released from power plants. Isn't it always more effective to capture at the source with the exception being non fixed sources like cars?

Power plants already have a more effective and much cheaper option than carbon capture: use a zero-carbon power source. Even nuclear is cheaper. Many countries have committed to zero-carbon electricity production by 2035, and all countries should.

OTOH, carbon capture is still in the technology demonstration phase, and there is no way that it can capture 100% of power plant emissions by 2035.

Carbon capture at source is still a good idea for industrial emitters that don't have good zero-carbon options. For example, cement production might be one of those.

That's a good point. Systems like this fixed onto the actual sources of these emissions would be far more effective at capturing carbon, and most likely produce far more fuel, for the same- if not, a not much worse price.

Not sure where "Backyard" came from here. Yes, a 20 foot shipping container fits in many backyards. But most people don't have a use for 50 tons of kerosene per year, nor $750k to spend on this equipment. Nor the electric service to consume 800 kWh per ton of CO2.

Chemical plants in shipping container form factors are awesome, but the point is not so that you can put them in backyards, it's in achieving economies of scale and modularity from central, automated manufacturing sites instead of on-site manual, custom construction.

16,500 US gallons of kerosene assuming that I am driving https://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/volume-to-weight correctly. The market value of that output feels piddly relative to the cost of the inputs that you called out.

> Not sure where "Backyard" came from here

Whoosh? It's just a little headline joke to draw attention to the article.

Concept is interesting, need more designs like this to find some economic winners.

I wonder how effective this system is at producing e-kerosene, as well as how cost-effective producing fuel this way is. It's certainly a step in the right direction to offsetting carbon emissions.

I also wonder how much excess carbon we can keep in the atmosphere without causing catastrophe. A slightly warmer planet with more CO_2 for more plants to use to grow may be better for humanity and the global ecosystem in general.

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