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Cover Story

Carbon Capture: What’s the Catch?

As 2023 goes down as the hottest year on record, many argue that the real impact of climate change is already here – making the recent UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) all the more urgent. Carbon capture was a hot topic at COP28, thanks in part to the huge number of carbon capture lobbyists in attendance. In the end, carbon capture joined nuclear, hydrogen and renewables as one of the agreed-upon solutions to our continued use of fossil fuels.

Now, when it comes to carbon capture, it’s important to delineate its primary forms: carbon capture and storage (CCS) and direct air capture (DAC). In CCS, carbon dioxide is removed from point sources, such as cement factories or steel foundries; in DAC, CO₂ is pulled from the ambient air. The COP28 resolutions appear to conflate these two technologies, but there are important differences between them.

CCS has been around for 50 years and, ironically, it’s largely been used to extract more fossil fuels by injecting the captured CO₂ into oil and gas reservoirs to squeeze out more hydrocarbons. According to the International Energy Agency, the roughly 40 CCS projects around the world capture about 45 million metric tons of CO₂ each year – about 0.1% of the 36.8 billion metric tons of energy-related CO₂ emitted annually.

DAC has been even less successful. With the total system cost estimated at roughly $1,000 per metric ton of CO₂, capturing 3% of global emissions would cost $1 trillion. However, that estimate is based on today’s commercially available technology. Novel approaches, such as those using metal-organic frameworks or basalt dust, could significantly reduce the cost of DAC systems or increase their efficiency.

The lingering question is whether DAC can improve fast enough in the short-term to help mitigate climate change in the long-term (subscription required).

In the News

Engineering a 450-Million-Year-Old Sea Creature

Roboticists love drawing inspiration from nature, but a team of engineers at Carnegie Mellon have taken biomimicry to a new extreme by resurrecting a creature that went extinct during the Ordovician Period, 450 million years ago. Pleurocystitid, which existed in the same class as starfish and sea urchins, was one of the first echinoderms to move using a muscular stem. Using a combination of 3D printing and soft robotics, the Carnegie Mellon team have brought pleurocystitid into the modern era in the latest example of paleobionics.

Don’t Railways Have the Right to Repair?

An ethical hacking group called Dragon Sector is accusing train manufacturer Newag of deliberately “bricking” trains sent for repair to anyone other than the manufacturer. According to Dragon Sector, software in the control system of Newag trains disables them if a GPS tracker shows they’ve parked for several days at an independent repair shop. Newag denies the claims, arguing that “any remote intervention” of its trains is “virtually impossible.”

Recommendations

Milky Way Music

When you need a break this holiday season, why not relax to the sounds of our galaxy? NASA’s Universe of Sound project is making data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other NASA telescopes audible using a mathematical mapping between pixel values and sound waves. Partnering with composer Sophie Kastner, the project recently released a soundscape highlighting three astronomical objects in the Milky Way, including a “supermassive black hole.”

Beauty in (Fluid) Motion

The American Physical Society has announced the winner of its annual Gallery of Fluid Motion poster and video contest. Submissions are judged on a combination of aesthetic and scientific considerations, with winners published in the APS journal Physical Review Fluids. This year’s winners include the ancient art form of marbling, frost-covered windows and a 3D-printed liquid lace.

Stanford Brings Disruption and Ethics Together

The ethics of design are often underestimated. Stanford University is trying to correct that oversight by revising its design curriculum, including new courses such as History and Ethics of Design. Engineering students are being encouraged to consider alternatives to the “move fast, break things” ethos of Silicon Valley and instead see themselves as moral agents, first and foremost. These are just a few of many changes to the broader design curriculum that’s placing greater emphasis on the responsibilities of design work.

From engineering.com

The Biggest Improvements in SOLIDWORKS 2024

Ready for SOLIDWORKS 2023? Engineering.com dove in to find the biggest areas of improvement over the previous year’s release. The biggest by far: Cloud Services.

10 A.I. Features Coming to Simulation in 2024

This was a big year for A.I., but next year should be even bigger. Engineering.com asked experts what to expect in A.I.-powered simulation in 2024. They told us that bespoke models and enhanced digital twins are just some of ways A.I. could make 2024 a banner year for advancements in the field.