> Then, to fix it, we'll need a massive Direct Air Capture industry that will have to operate for a century, and probably past that so we can hit and maintain a CO2 level of 250ppm.

Which should probably be nuclear powered, at the required scale. So we could have taken the direct route, instead of solar, bess, wind, water, geothermal...(c.f. Alien, Aliens, 'Atmospheric Processor'...)

Anybody remembering the trash which was sold as 'lightbulbs' for about 15 years, before LED got somewhat acceptable colors? And prices? And longevity?

Mehw, lightbulb baad, eats too much waatt! So lets miniaturize CFLs to be able to screw them in lightbulb sockets! So they get warm because they are so small, the sockets have no airflow, and their own electronics go with a premature blow! Yay!

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defrost 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> Which should probably be nuclear powered, at the required scale.

Why?

Why not capture CO2, pump carbonated water into the Yilgarn Craton, recover the created hydrogen to both provide power and water to carbonate?

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LargoLasskhyfv 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Because all the stuff required to do that does not grow on trees. Which means it has its own externalities regarding mass flows, EROI, emissions. At present time it just means the externalities have been made into other peoples problems. Regarding mining, tailings, transport, production, and so on.

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defrost 5 hours ago | parent [-]

What tailings, what transport?

Serious questions here ... I'm also curious about your actual experience in heavy mineral and energy industry, largest plant you've worked at, scale of operation, etc.

(FWiW in fairness, I've worked a few decades in and around > half a billion tonne per annum mining and worked globally in geophysical mineral and energy exploration)

	▲	LargoLasskhyfv 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I'm also curious about your actual experience in heavy mineral and energy industry, largest plant you've worked at, scale of operation, etc. None actually, except from the financial side making that happen, lately. Very indirect, at that. And I'm uncomfortable disclosing more, because I don't want to be doxxed. Its all so cozy right now :-) From longer times ago, very intensive personal studies about stuff like that, at least 'knowing' what a Sankey-diagram or its variations for 'Gesamtstoffmengenkreisläufe'/mass-flows is. Changing my young and naive opinions in the light of understanding that, and what it means! Which is less emissions over all sectors for nuclear, vs. everything else. With the exception of big geothermal, maybe. But we didn't do that big so far, and where we have tried, it produced unintended side-effects. Which leaves the question of where to put that stuff, after it burned out and has been contaminated with afterglowing hotness for a while. Why not in the Yilgan Craton? How big do you think the required atmospheric CO2 extractors need to be? Which mass- and energy flows will they have to have? At which count? A few dozen, hundreds, thousands? Maybe more like a grid with about 200 miles distance between them? Including at sea? I'd guess about 5000 of these 'Atmospheric Processors' would suffice. And the only sufficient fuel we have for that scale is nukkular.