How Thermodynamics Holds Back Negative Carbon Tech

Go to our sponsor for 10% off your first month of therapy with BetterHelp and get matched with a therapist who will listen and help. Direct Air Capture (DAC) has been getting more and more attention over the last few years. Could we avert climate change by pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere? Could we not just stop, but actually *reverse* the damage done? Unfortunately, most don’t fully appreciate just quite how much CO2 we’ve emitted and the outrageous scale of the problem facing us. Today, we apply the fundamental principles of thermodynamics to question whether this is even feasible. Written & presented by Prof. David Kipping. Edited by Jorge Casas. Fact checking by Alexandra Masegian. → Support our research: → Get merch: → Check out our podcast: @CoolWorldsPodcast THANK-YOU to D. Smith, M. Sloan, L. Sanborn, C. Bottaccini, D. Daughaday, A. Jones, S. Brownlee, N. Kildal, Z. Star, E. West, T. Zajonc, C. Wolfred, L. Skov, G. Benson, A. De Vaal, M. Elliott, B. Daniluk, M. Forbes, S. Vystoropskyi, S. Lee, Z. Danielson, C. Fitzgerald, C. Souter, M. Gillette, T. Jeffcoat, J. Rockett, D. Murphree, T. Donkin, K. Myers, A. Schoen, K. Dabrowski, J. Black, R. Ramezankhani, J. Armstrong, K. Weber, S. Marks, L. Robinson, S. Roulier, B. Smith, J. Cassese, J. Kruger, S. Way, P. Finch, S. Applegate, L. Watson, E. Zahnle, N. Gebben, J. Bergman, E. Dessoi, C. Macdonald, M. Hedlund, P. Kaup, C. Hays, W. Evans, D. Bansal, J. Curtin, J. Sturm, RAND Corp., M. Donovan, N. Corwin, M. Mangione, K. Howard, L. Deacon, G. Metts, G. Genova, R. Provost, B. Sigurjonsson, G. Fullwood, B. Walford, J. Boyd, N. De Haan, J. Gillmer, R. Williams, E. Garland, A. Leishman, A. Phan Le, R. Lovely, M. Spoto, A. Steele, M. Varenka, K. Yarbrough, A. Cornejo, D. Compos, F. Demopoulos, G. Bylinsky, J. Werner, B. Pearson, S. Thayer, T. Edris, A. Harrison, B. Seeley, F. Blood, M. O’Brien, P. Muzyka, E. Loomans, D. Lee, J. Sargent, M. Czirr, F. Krotzer, I. Williams, J. Sattler, & J. Smallbon. REFERENCES ► House, K. Z. et al. 2011, “Economic and energetic analysis of capturing CO2 from ambient air“, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 108(51), 20428-33: ► Lackner, K. S. 2013, “The thermodynamics of direct air capture of carbon dioxide“, Energy, 50, 38: ► Long-Innes, R. & Struchtrup, H. 2022, “Thermodynamic loss analysis of a liquid- sorbent direct air carbon capture plant“, Cell Reports Physical Science, 3, 100791: ► Ozkan, M. et al., 2022, “Current status and pillars of direct air capture technologies“, iScience, 25, 103990: ► Sanz-Perez E. S. et al., 2016, “Direct Capture of CO2 from Ambient Air“, Chem. Rev., 116, 11840: MUSIC Licensed by (SS) [], , via CC Attribution License () or with permission from the artist. ► Hill - A Slowly Lifting Fog [0:00] ► Falls - Life in Binary [3:24] ► Hill - Northern Boards [8:03] ► Hill - To Quiet the Drumming Inside My Head [11:13] ► Hill - Chasing out the Chaos [15:29] ► Chris Zabriskie - Cylinder Seven [19:23] ► Joachim Heinrich - Y [22:53] CHAPTERS 0:00 Climate Change 2:44 Removal Requirements 3:38 Possible Solutions 5:03 Introducing DAC 5:43 Climate Anxiety 7:12 DAC Principles 8:14 Scalability 9:29 Thermodynamics 12:08 Progressive DAC 13:32 RCPs 15:09 Simulations 17:03 Energy Requirements 19:34 Efficiency 21:21 Conclusions 24:35 Outro and credits #DirectAirCapture #ClimateChange #NetZero