@arendt

BOTTOM LINE: This field (CO2 sequestration) is technically difficult

Forests Are a Low-Tech but High-Impact Way to Fight Climate Change
Keeping forests intact can go a long way toward saving the planet
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/forests-are-a-low-tech-but-hi...

Bhutan is a carbon negative country due to their reforestation. Bhutan produces 1.5 million tonnes of carbon every year, but thanks to the country’s 72 per cent forest coverage, more than 6 million tonnes of carbon is absorbed.
http://www.climateaction.org/news/bhutan_the_worlds_only_carbon_negative...

We just need to make the change. (and the fungi could play a role in conjunction with the forests)

But I'm just jaded.

The company developed a process to generate hydrocarbon-based fuel by combining non-fresh water, nutrients, cyanobacteria, carbon dioxide, and sunlight. After ten years of operation and building a demonstration plant in New Mexico, the company shut down in August 2017. The company shut down after management was unable to raise money, which the CEO attributed to Hillary Clinton losing the 2016 Presidential election.

Joule Unlimited did not reveal*** the name of the organism that it used, although it acknowledged that the company had modified the organism.[7] In September, 2010, Joule received a patent for genetically altered bacterium.[8]

Joule Unlimited

*** After the company went bankrupt, the patent was revealed and the tech is up for auction.

You might wonder about that reference to Her Majesty. Well, we all know that Wikipedia is monitored and censored. So its hardly news that it would leave out the really messy side of this train wreck.

Podesta, Putin, Trump, Gingrich, and Joule: WikiLeaks and the inside true story

Clearly, Joule was caught up in the Russiagate mania - a mania so strong that it couldn't be protected by Mr. Insider, John Podesta. But its not clear that Russophobia was the cause of its demise.

Were the skeptics right?

At any industry gathering over the past 8 years, the room divided into passionate Joule supporters and deep skeptics. Does the news from Joule mean that the technology was doomed, or that the timing was flawed?

“Obviously this is a totally novel process,” Joule EVP Tom Einar Jensen once told The Digest. “And, we’re claiming to be very efficient in this process, and it is understandably hard to wrap your head around the idea until you see it work in practice. Also, there are companies including Joule that have claimed productivity levels and timelines that haven’t materialized. If you have provided promises on timelines and haven’t delivered, you have to show what stands up to scrutiny.”

Heat Death: Joule Unlimited collapses as oil prices flag, time passes, pressure mounts

That is not to say the entire operation was smoke and mirrors:

the company obtained EPA approval of Joule’s Sunflow-E ethanol pathway for generating advanced biofuel (D-code 5) RINs under the Clean Air Act (CAA). This recognition from the EPA validates Joule’s mission to create carbon-neutral fuels for a sustainable tomorrow, and follows the 2015 announcement that Joule’s Sunflow-E ethanol was registered by the EPA for commercial use. In the EPA’s analysis, Joule’s Sunflow-E was found to reduce lifecycle GHG emissions by a whopping 85 percent, significantly above the required threshold.

Its also true that the dramatic drop in oil prices (engineered to screw Iran, Russia, and Venezuela) wrecked the economics of CO2 sequestration

The Bottom Line

We expect to see a few more companies finding themselves trapped in the Valley of Death during this cycle of low commodity prices, unable to attract the financing for a commercial-scale plant despite striking advances in technology — in many cases.

The Valley of Death is a venture capital term for when a startup needs a lot of money up front to implement technology, but the technology is unproven so investors are shy.

BOTTOM LINE: This field (CO2 sequestration) is technically difficult, and it is full of scammers. It is also at the mercy of fossil fuel prices. I don't think its easily possible to tell whether a company is legit or not. I think you have to look into not only the tech, but also who is providing the money and how politically connected they are.

For example, Bill Gates has been pouring money into strange energy storage tech for years. There was one scheme to use a ski-lift like gadget to transport truck-sized boxes of rocks up and down a mountain slope. I don't think it was a scam (unless the developers were scamming Gates.)

FINAL BOTTOM LINE: I don't know. I will take a look at your references

@arendt

That’s my question. How much carbon can your back yard sequester? And for how many years?

I read this short story many years ago about this kid in Japan who found a hole in the ground. He dropped a pebble in it and it never hit bottom. This became a major boon to the economy because it was easy to dispose of any waste. Then one day a builder at the top of a new skyscraper saw a pebble go by...

That’s my problem with systems like this. Even if they work, they are really only selling a balm for the souls of consumerism junkies. It’s like what happened with all the mileage efficiencies developed for cars: instead of higher mileage cars we got SUVs with the same mileage. Unless we change our behavior (or at least how we generate energy) this is a delusion.

Now, it might work to suck the excess out of the air, but there is no point in doing that until after we stop emitting. Otherwise it just becomes an excuse to do nothing.

Everything I have read makes claims like

We sequestered X tons of carbon with Y square feet of mycelium treated grass.

But they don't say over what period of time! Was it a day, a month, a year? It makes a huge difference.

At one point they say $11/ton vs $100/ton for mechanical. But who knows if said, unnamed mechanical was economically viable.

So far, I am seeing games being played with numbers. I'm not sold yet, although, conceptually there is nothing wrong. It's all a question of numbers - and they're being coy with those.

@Roy Blakeley That my solar panels have saved a bit over 12 metric tons of carbon dioxide production in just over three years in comparison with the Hivemind claims.

For a start, it is a little disconcerting that the company uses the singular form mycelium instead of the correct plural form mycelia in a white paper. Fungi do not convert carbon dioxide to long chain hydrocarbons. This requires photosynthesis and fungi do not have chlorophyll or carry out photosynthesis. Some fungi form symbioses with various green plants (trees, grasses) that can increase the plant growth rates. There has been valid research on this for decades. There are companies that sell seeds inoculated with specific fungi because the fungi facilitate the growth of the seeds and health of the seedlings. Those same fungi can often use sugars produced by the plants as a carbon source to grow, so the sugars created by photosynthesis are sequestered in long chain polymers in the fungi, particularly in the fungal walls (beta glucans mostly). These will eventually be broken down and, through respiration, and will cycle back to carbon dioxide. However, there will be a transient net increase in sequestered carbon. There are, however, fungi in the soil so the benefit of the Hivemind approach would be that the specific fungi they wish to use would cause a net average increase in carbon sequestration due to increased plant growth and carbon retention in mycelia relative to the fungi one finds randomly in the soil. If you look at the whitepaper, the vision is to have every roof covered with grass, presumably inoculated with their selected fungi. This might be a good thing, but the claim of 135 metric tons (297,000 pounds) sequestered in 500 sq ft (22.4 ft square) seems far fetched to me. The amount of carbon sequestered per unit volume would have to be bizarrely high, and my roof would certainly collapse under such weight. The fact, moreover, that the approach is not explained clearly suggests that this is, at least in part, a scam.

@Roy Blakeley

There is a terrifying lack of numerical literacy in the world that enables this sort of crap.

For a start, it is a little disconcerting that the company uses the singular form mycelium instead of the correct plural form mycelia in a white paper. Fungi do not convert carbon dioxide to long chain hydrocarbons. This requires photosynthesis and fungi do not have chlorophyll or carry out photosynthesis. Some fungi form symbioses with various green plants (trees, grasses) that can increase the plant growth rates. There has been valid research on this for decades. There are companies that sell seeds inoculated with specific fungi because the fungi facilitate the growth of the seeds and health of the seedlings. Those same fungi can often use sugars produced by the plants as a carbon source to grow, so the sugars created by photosynthesis are sequestered in long chain polymers in the fungi, particularly in the fungal walls (beta glucans mostly). These will eventually be broken down and, through respiration, and will cycle back to carbon dioxide. However, there will be a transient net increase in sequestered carbon. There are, however, fungi in the soil so the benefit of the Hivemind approach would be that the specific fungi they wish to use would cause a net average increase in carbon sequestration due to increased plant growth and carbon retention in mycelia relative to the fungi one finds randomly in the soil. If you look at the whitepaper, the vision is to have every roof covered with grass, presumably inoculated with their selected fungi. This might be a good thing, but the claim of 135 metric tons (297,000 pounds) sequestered in 500 sq ft (22.4 ft square) seems far fetched to me. The amount of carbon sequestered per unit volume would have to be bizarrely high, and my roof would certainly collapse under such weight. The fact, moreover, that the approach is not explained clearly suggests that this is, at least in part, a scam.

@mhagle
That's a grubbing.
I've researched this a bit and watched replies.
I'm also calling scam unless they want to explain a whole lot of shit. Which of course they won't.

We have a angel who will match all investments up to $1,000 for one hour exactly.

You have an opportunity to invest in HiveMind and join the fight against climate change at: http://wefunder.com/hivemind