We rarely witness evolution on a timeframe short enough for a single human life

to take notice. These changes usually occur over many lifetimes, the gradual drift
of a creatures DNA to best survive their environment. But in one case in the
1700s humans witnessed evolution with their own eyes, and they caused it. This
metamorphosis coincided with human’s rapid industrialization. We began burning
coal on levels never before seen, and it’s bi-products rapidly changed the
landscape for not just humans, but for animals that shared the planet with them.

The peppered moth was one of those animals, getting its name from the
speckled white and black colouring, designed to camouflage the moth while it lay
on lichen covered tree barks. A black variant was first observed in 1811, many
decades into the industrial revolution. At first the mutation was rare, but human’s
influence on the environment grew, so did their numbers. By 1895, 98% of the
peppered moths in Manchester had this black colouring [1] Surely this black
colouring would leave them exposed, making them easier to spot for hungry
birds. In reality, these moths had adapted to be harder to spot in this newly
industrialised world, one stain by soot.

And it may be time for humans to follow their lead. To evolve, or die. The rate we
have been spewing these pollutants into our atmosphere has only risen since this
discovering. Our carbon dioxide emissions have risen from one thousand six
hundred million metric tonnes to thirty six thousand million metric tonnes since
1865 [2] And despite our best efforts, that number is not declining. Human
population and development are continuing to outpaced our efforts to curbed our
carbon dioxide emissions.

Just as alcohol producing yeast will eventually create an environment too toxic
for itself to survive, humans are pumping the world’s atmosphere with a gas that
will eventually render the world unlivable for many, if something is not done. So
we have to ask ourselves now, are going the way of a mindless single cell fungi
that continue to poison their habitat until they die, or are we going to recognise
that the survival of the next generation is more important?

Our previous videos have discussed ways to mitigate climate change, by planting
trees in the Sahara or by using aerosols to block out the sun. Both are pretty
extreme methods, and come with some big risks that could lead to some
unforeseen consequences. Instead of some risky engineering tactic, what if we
could just suck the CO₂ right out of the air, undoing some of the damage that has
been done?

Well, in certain circumstances, this already does happen. Carbon capture and
storage (CCS) has been around for years. There are a few main types of carbon
capture, almost all of which happens at power plants, capturing the carbon that
comes directly from the plant. In post-combustion ​carbon capture, the CO₂ is
captured after the fossil fuel is burned. In this method, CO₂ is separated from the
flue gas, which includes CO₂, water vapor, sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides,
by bubbling the gas through an absorber column packed with liquid solvents,
such as ammonia. In the most widely used system, once the chemicals in the
absorber column become saturated, a stream of superheated steam at around
120C is passed through it. This releases the trapped CO₂, which can then be
transported for storage elsewhere. [3]

In pre-combustion carbon capture,​ CO₂ is trapped before it's diluted by other flue
gases. The fossil fuel is heated in pure oxygen, resulting in a mix of carbon
monoxide and hydrogen. The carbon monoxide is reacted with water to produce
CO​2​, which is captured, along with hydrogen. The hydrogen can be diverted to to
be burned to produce electricity, and the CO₂ is stored. [4]

Pre- and post-combustion carbon capture can prevent 80 to 90 percent of a

power plant's carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere. [5] This is a big
deal. The IPCC estimates that CCS has the potential to make up between 10%
and 55% of the total carbon mitigation effort until year 2100. [6]

However, this carbon has to be stored somewhere. It is most often stored

underground in a process called geological sequestration, which involves
injecting CO₂ into underground rock formations. It is stored as a supercritical
fluid, meaning it has properties between those of a gas and a liquid. When CO₂
is injected at depth, it will remain in the supercritical condition as long as it stays
in excess of 31.1°C and at a pressure in excess of 72.9 atm. Many times, the
CO₂ is injected into a reservoir which previously trapped oil and gas, since those
areas have natural rock formations that help to contain the CO₂. While this might
be an okay solution, no one knows for sure what the environmental impact could
be if the CO₂ were to leak out into the environment in large quantities. [7] In
some instances, leakage of CO₂ underground has been shown to increase plant
mortality, reduce growth and create potentially severe localised damage to
ecosystems. For this to be a viable, safe option, the CO₂ would need to remain
stored for 100s of years, or even indefinitely, and the feasibility of this is not
certain. [8]

Other methods of storing carbon include sinking it deep below the ocean, at
depths under 3500 meters, where it turns into a slushy material that will sink to
the ocean floor under that amount of pressure. But this method is largely
untested, and again, there are concerns about what this could mean for marine
life, and uncertainty on whether or not the CO₂ could eventually make its way
back into the environment. [9]

There have been more promising experiments in carbon storage in Iceland,

where researchers have shown that pumping CO​2​ into the volcanic rock
underground can speed up a natural process where the basalts react with the
gas to form carbonate minerals, which make up limestone. This is an
encouraging development, but has its limitations. It requires large amounts of
water: 25 tonnes for each tonne of CO​2 ​buried, meaning this process would have
to be limited to coastal sites. Another is that subterranean microbes might break
down carbonate to methane, another powerful greenhouse gas. [10]

And while 80 to 90 percent of a power plant’s carbon emissions can, in theory, be

captured and stored in one of many ways, what about all of the other carbon
emitting things in our world? Only 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions
come from electricity and heat production at power plants. Transportation,
general industry, and agriculture collectively make up around 60% of greenhouse
gas emissions. [11] Is there a way to capture CO₂ from these sources?

Direct air capture has, up to recently, been a largely theoretical technique in

which CO₂ (and other greenhouse gases) are removed directly from the
atmosphere. Theoretical, because to do this on a scale that even makes a dent
has historically been ridiculously expensive - some experts say as much as $600
per metric ton of carbon dioxide. For reference, a typical passenger vehicle emits
about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. [12] But recently a team of
scientists from Harvard University and the Bill Gates funded company Carbon
Engineering announced that they have found a method to cheaply pull
carbon-dioxide pollution out of the atmosphere - they say for as little as $94, and
for no more than $232 per metric ton of CO₂. This means that it would cost
between $1 and $2.50 to remove the carbon dioxide released by burning a gallon
of gasoline in a modern car. And not only do they suck the CO₂ out of the air with
the ability to store it - they will also transform the carbon back in to gasoline or jet
fuel, creating net-neutral carbon based fuels. [13]

While this sounds too good to be true, the methods they use to pull CO₂ out of
the air not too different from what has already been done for decades.

This type of direct air capture starts with an air contractor, where air is sucked in
at high volumes. This structure “wet scrubs” the air by using a strong hydroxide
solution to capture CO₂ and convert it into carbonate. The hydroxide solution
reacts with CO₂ to form CO​3​2−​ (carbonate ions). This occurs within a structure
which is much the same as an industrial cooling tower.

CO​2 ​ + 2KOH → H​2​O + K​2​CO​3

The next step involves a “pellet reactor” where CO​3​2−​ (carbonate) reacts with Ca​2+
(calcium) to form CaCO​3 (calcium
​ carbonate), in the form of dried pellets.

K​2​CO​3​ + Ca(OH) → 2KOH + CaCO​3

Then, a circulating fluid bed calciner heats the calcium carbonate (CaCO​3​) pellets
to decomposition temperature, breaking them apart to release the CO₂ as a gas
and leave behind calcium oxide (CaO), aka solide lime. [14]

CaCO​3 ​→ CaO + CO​2

Finally, the carbon dioxide is combined with hydrogen and converted into liquid
fuels, including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, using the Fischer-Tropsch process.
This is a process where a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen are
converted into liquid hydrocarbons, such as octane. These reactions occur in the
presence of metal catalysts and typically at temperatures of 150–300 °C. [15]

17H​2​ + ​8​CO → C​8​H​18​ + ​8​H​2​O

This means the company can produce carbon-neutral hydrocarbons, meaning if

you were to burn this octane in your car, you ​would​ release carbon-dioxide
pollution out of your exhaust and into the atmosphere. But because this carbon
dioxide came from the air in the first place, these emissions would not introduce
any ​new​ CO​2​ to the atmosphere, and no oil would need to be extracted from the
earth to power your car. And perhaps most importantly for the economic viability
of this idea, they can sell the product, which helps to offset costs, allowing them
to capture even more CO​2​, to either convert back into hydrocarbons or ultimately
store.

And backing up their cost estimates of between $94 and $232 per metric ton of
CO​2​ is the fact that they’ve actually tested the technology in a prototype plant for
a few years in Squamish, British Columbia, which offers a proof of principle that’s
way stronger than simple calculations or computational models. It currently
captures and processes around 1 ton of CO​2​ per day. [16]

However, for this idea to work on a large scale, the process has to be
cost-effective to implement cheaply around the world, without the massive costs
of constructing all-new factory parts. In the pilot plant, they pulled all this off by
designing a factory based entirely on parts that suppliers could already make
cheaply and by keeping careful track of their emissions and costs at each stage
of the design and production process. They are currently seeking funding for an
industrial-scale version of the plant, that will use low-cost renewable energy, that
will produce 200 barrels of synthetic fuel a day, which they hope to complete by
2021. [17]

But how much carbon can they realistically hope to suck out of the air? In 2017,
the world emitted about 32.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide. If this technology were
built at a scale to suck all that back out of the atmosphere at $93 to $232 per ton,
simple math shows that the total cost would be between about $3 trillion and $7.5
trillion, meaning there would need to be a trillion dollar industry working to to suck
a years worth of CO​2​ out the air. [18] That seems like a lot, but many industries
are worth more than that, including Apple or the airline industry. Definitely a tall
order, but not impossible.

For this idea to work globally in pulling substantial amounts of CO​2​ from the
Earth’s air, there would need to be hundreds or thousands of scaled-up plants
producing hundreds of thousands of barrels of carbon-neutral fuel to drive down
costs further, in the same way that solar and wind energy costs have plummeted
over the past decades as scale has risen.

However, to keep global warming to less than 2 degrees C, the international

target to avoid the most dangerous impacts, we will need negative emissions, not
carbon neutral emissions. We need carbon to be taken out of the atmosphere
and stored permanently, or the problem will only plateau indefinitely. And if
Carbon Engineering is making fuel from their captured carbon, this is only a
carbon-neutral plan.

But the reality of the situation is that when you are only capturing and storing
carbon, there is no market for that. The only way to pay for carbon being
captured from the air and stored, on a large scale, would be government
subsidies, and to rely on only our governments to solve this problem is certainly a
mistake. And at $100 per ton at the moment, there aren’t enough CO​2​ buyers in
the market for any other uses to make a dent.

Thus, introducing the idea of selling back the carbon as fuel is a way to fund such
an effort. With market demand and money coming in, companies like Carbon
Engineering can improve their technology, expand operations, store ​some
carbon, and work toward making sure that less oil is extracted from the ground
over time.

Critics say that we should simply just not be taking the carbon out of the ground
in the first place, focusing on reducing emissions rather than capture and
storage, or capture and re-use. And some worry that technology like this will
allow us to think that we have no responsibility to reduce emissions. And it is
cheaper to not emit a ton of carbon dioxide than to capture it. While these are all
definitely valid points, technology like this can and should play a role in how we
tackle climate change. It’s unrealistic to think that every industry, every
consumer, and every government in the world will change their behavior in time
to tackle the rising global temperatures, as much as we wish they would. And
technology like this will go a long way to help mitigate the negative effects of
industries where a carbon zero result is next to impossible, like steel or cement
manufacturing, or long-distance air travel.

So this may not be a silver bullet curing the world of climate change, but it is
definitely a technology to be invested in as a tool in the toolbox to help solve the
problem. And with direct air capture able to operate anywhere where there is air,
water, and electricity, every country could in theory, have their own supply of
carbon neutral oil.

Brian References:
[1] ​http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/Moths/moths.html
[2] ​https://www.statista.com/statistics/264699/worldwide-co2-emissions/

Reference Graphs:
[3] https://www.greenfacts.org/en/co2-capture-storage/l-3/3-capture-co2.htm
[4]​https://www.energy.gov/fe/science-innovation/carbon-capture-and-storage-res
earch/carbon-capture-rd/pre-combustion-carbon
[5] https://www.greenfacts.org/en/co2-capture-storage/l-3/3-capture-co2.htm
[6] ​http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srccs/srccs_wholereport.pdf
[7]​http://www.climateontario.ca/MNR_Publications/276925.pdf
[8] ​http://climatevision.co.uk/the-negatives-of-carbon-capture-and-storage
[9]​https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/bury-co2-in-o
cean2.htm
[10]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/09/co2-turned-into-stone-
in-iceland-in-climate-change-breakthrough
[11] ​https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
[12]​https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passe
nger-vehicle
[13]
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/06/its-possible-to-reverse-clim
ate-change-suggests-major-new-study/562289/
[14]​https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30225-3
[15] ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process
[16] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/PT.3.4018
[17] https://www.livescience.com/62784-co2-suck-climate-gasoline-air.html
[18]https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/carbon-engineering-liquid-fuel-
carbon-capture-neutral-science/