# 3 "Artworks" On Carbon Capture

Let's invent and sketch out 3 devices for DIY carbon capture.

## Introduction: "Art"

To sum up our research we **engineer small art works**. Why "art works"? Because we don't bother with effictiveness - they can even be absurd! We want to raise questions, open spaces for further research and thinking.

Reference art work: [HARVEST](https://twitter.com/julian0liver/status/908695706604654595).

Absurd or ineffective does not have to mean poorly engineered: [LuuMa EV3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xCd55oSgO4)

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We organize this work around the idea that **activism** is the most promising DIY activity for carbon capture. So the key is to connect our art works to activism ideas like HARVEST connects its device to climate research.

## 3 Areas

Building on [our research](https://hackmd.io/0jHObn93TumzApPD1sFgPg?view) I think these art works are possible in **3 areas.**

+ Enhanced Weathering
+ Regenerative Agriculture/Carbon Gardening
+ BioChar

Here is a first quick idea for each area. You can use and build it further or start with a new one.

> **Enhanced Weathering:** You crush rocks with a hammer. The hammer has a sensor built in. With every hundredth strike a tweet is send to a politician. (You can connect [Twitter bots](https://make.techwillsaveus.com/thirsty-plant-kit/activities/tweeting-thirsty-plant) to almost anything).
> **Carbon Garden**: You can easily find backyard gardens with 200 square meters in Berlin. Transform them into a Carbon Garden. Every Sunday you open the gates and give the interested public a tour. The last step of the tour is that everyone sits down and writes a letter to their local politicians or garden companies with political demands or suggestions. Sometimes you held press breakfasts introducing the press to your ideas and demands.
> **Biochar:** People make biochar in a drum. Alone or with visitors. They weigh the results of every run. For every Kilogram or for every 100 gramm they write a letter to municipal companies or farmers suggesting them to look into biochar.

## Form of the idea/work

I'd like us to press these 3 little projects into the same form consisting of these parts.

| Machine | Steps | Activism Idea |
| -------- | -------- | -------- |
| Little machine or action for DIY carbon capture, maybe ineffective andabsurd but doable. A **sketch and a summary**. | A step by step guide to set up this machine or device. **Up to 10 Steps** (not more). The steps are **concrete actions** that build on each other and focus on things to do. When you go through them something is done. Remember it is an artwork. You can leave things open for people to research. Link to external resouces and so on. | How does this trigger activism? Somewhere in the steps **the activism idea needs to be involved or triggered**. Maybe in the last step maybe it slowly builds up over several steps. There are [many different tools and demands for activism](https://hackmd.io/0jHObn93TumzApPD1sFgPg?view). Make a choice and connection.

In our internship we should be able to make complete sketches for all 3 areas. And go deeper on at least one of them.

↓

## To Do

General remark: Dive into the work. Try to **see yourself as an artist here**. You are not just a tool to answer a fixed question. Explore. Open. Connect. Think outside the box. Reconnect. Shape this. Teach.

Come up with loose ideas for all 3 areas and write them down. The idea should describe the "device" and the activism part connected to it. It will help to do research on the tools for activism. (New question in the [sketches pad](https://hackmd.io/0jHObn93TumzApPD1sFgPg?view)).

If you chose one of the ideas above please elaborate on them like this:
+ Start to write down steps (collect sources for them)
+ Specify how to political activism part works. What tools. Whom to address? With what message/demand?

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# 1 Enhanced Weathering

[Enhanced weathering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering#:~:text=Enhanced%20weathering%20or%20accelerated%20weathering,occurring%20in%20the%20presence%20of) or accelerated weathering refers to geoengineering approaches intended to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by using of specific natural or artificially created minerals which absorb carbon dioxide and transform it in other substances through chemical reactions.

Minerals that can be used are Dunite, Basalt, Wollastonite or Artificial silicates. Their respective sequestration capacity and cost are given in the picture below.

[Dunite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunite) is an igneous, plutonic rock, of ultramafic composition found in the lowermost parts of ophiolites, alpine peridotite massifs, and xenoliths may represent the refractory residue left after the extraction of basaltic magmas in the upper mantle.
Dunite could be used to sequester CO2 and help mitigate global climate change via accelerated chemical rock weathering. This would involve the mining of dunite rocks in quarries followed by crushing and grinding as to create fine ground rock that would react with the atmospheric carbon dioxide. The resulting products are magnesite and silica which could be commercialized.

Basalt is also a mineral that could be used to sequester carbon by enhanced weathering similar to Dunite, but with much lower Carbon sequestration rate of 0.3 and costs more $80 - $200 per tonn of CO2 sequestered.[Basalt Rock types](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt#Weathering)

Similar to the above minerals Wollastonite and arificial silicates can be used for Carbon sequestration with lower carbon sequestration rate.

Nevertheless, these minerals are composed of calcium, silicates and magnesium which causes repiratory problem when crushed into fine powder.[Link](https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/webinars.cfm)

## Availability of Basalt
[Companies in Germany](https://www.basalt.de/en/production-plants-sales-and-distribution/sales-and-distribution-germany/)
[Basalt Quarries](https://www.stonecontact.com/germany-basalt-quarries)

## Problems with enhanced weathering
* Respiratory problems in Human Beings
* Ocean Acidification
* Land Availability
* International and Domestic laws opposing Enhanced weathering.
[Link](https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/webinars.cfm)

# Summary
Enhanced weathering has the potential to capture and sequester the CO2 from the atmosphere but it is still in the research phase. It's sequestration capacity hasn't been measured over a large area and the time period of carbon storage is still unknown. Even if this method is sucessfully utilized to sequester the CO2 from the atmosphere, it would cause imbalance in the natural carbon cycle and would theoritically take more than 1000 years to attain equilibrium. Therefore, enhanced weather ing cannot be a reliable option to switch to. [Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering#Natural_mineral_weathering_and_ocean_acidification_mechanism)

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# 2 Carbon Garden

## Sketch 1: Public Carbon Gardens to learn about CG combined with prizes for open innovation

Provide people with the motivation to pursue carbon gardening at their homes, the one way to do it is by organizing an annual competetion. The winner gets a prize when we float the idea of a good amount of prize money there will be more and more participation.

> **QUESTION:** How do we measure success? How to decide who gets the money?

How this can be beneficial ?

It can be a starting point where people will come to know about the topic then they will dive deeper into the topic (ofcourse because of the prize money). This can give us new ideas for eg Max living in an apartment has little space and he thinks of some innovative idea that people with little or minimum space can implement in their apartments.
Secondly imagine spending substantial sum of money on the expensive carbon capture technologies.Governement will need to spendon high CAPEX and OPEX costs.
1) Divide the city in 4 zones East, West, North, South. Each of this zone has their own cartbon garden (not sure how big or small) where people can learn about carbon gardening.
2) Each garden has a shop or a website where people can buy seeds, natural fertilizers, books and other tools which can be useful to them to start their own garden.
3) Start small with indoor plants in pots, it also consists of healing plants like Tulsi which has health benefits.Here in this link you can find the 9 plants to get started (https://wiki.nurserylive.com/t/top-9-plants-that-absorb-co2-at-night-as-well-best-for-indoors/315)
4) If you feel motivated and do like going ones step further the next step is to grow your own organic vegetables.Here is a small list to get you started (https://www.thespruce.com/great-vegetables-to-grow-in-containers-848214),even people living in apartments can do it.
5) If you have a garden and just got a taste of carbon gardening and are still skeptical about which tree to plant or what plants would make more sense you can start by putting cover plants, which will be visually appealing and lower the time and cost of maintenance, a list of plants can be found here (https://www.thespruce.com/evergreen-ground-cover-plants-4582146)
6) The next steps is growing shrubs, if some one has a garden but does not want to grow big treees growing shrubs can be ideal for you if you have height issues , require very less maintenance but the benefit is that they have carbon fixation capabilities similar to that of a tree.Here you can find a list of shrubs from which you can select depending on the season.
(https://www.gardendesign.com/shrubs/flowering.html)
7) Now with people who have some times on their hands and are really into gardening nothing can beat a tree to capture carbon they are huge have trunks for storage and live for hundereds of years.Germany comes under zones 6-7 so here you can find the list of trees that can be planted for good results although there is a possibility to plant trees from other zones but it is better to stick with the native ones which are suited to your region. (https://www.gardendesign.com/shrubs/flowering.html) | **Question:** What grows under a tree? Any recommendations? Often large trees kill almost everything under them because they take away all the light. An anser to this would probably also help to figure out what plants can be recommended for shady backyards.

8) Once you have your backyard as a carbon sink then you calculate your own carbon footprint for that particular year (1 house). Then you comapre it with how much carbondioxide is your sink capturing, there are numerous carbon emissions calculators such as (https://getreprint.com/emissions-calculator/)

Divide the houses in each zone in different categories for eg (size of the house, no of people living , what type of vehicles used for commuting,etc) then according to theses categories whichever one of them captures more carbon than what they emmit or has the highest efficiency gets the prize.

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## Sketch 2: Programme a “robot”

Tasks

1. Make a Step By Step tutorial to set up a Carbon Garden. Perspective of a machine a dull person that has 200m2 of land avaialable in a european city. Just tell the person what to do. Simple tasks put in a row that lead towards an end.

*Gardens like these ar quite common in european cities where people with political power live ↑*

2. Chose around 5 resources from the web about carbon gardening/regenerative agriculture you would recommend to beginners. Discuss them (summarize what you will learn there). A list of useful resources.

3. In a nutshell: What are the 3 key ideas of Carbon Gardening/Regenerative Agriculture?

4. What are does and don'ts of Carbon Gardening?

(Why like this? The idea is to make a good tutorial. A **good tutorial** instructs you to do things. A deeper understanding follows later.)

Tutorial for your Indoor/Outddor Garden
1) Soil is the heart of the plants and trees that grow in it and the soil used for potting plants is different from he one used in the garden ,there are various articles on how to choose the soil for your garden. Here is an article of the five basic products that can be used for outdoors and indoors including potted plants. https://homecookingzone.com/best-gardening-soil-to-buy/
Although i would suggest it is alwyas better to ask at your local nursery what is the better choice suitable for your region.

2) Start small with these 9 plantswhich absorb carbon and are small enough to place indoors and dont require much sunlight and very less maintenance.https://wiki.nurserylive.com/t/top-9-plants-that-absorb-co2-at-night-as-well-best-for-indoors/315.
You can buy it online one of the link is here
https://www.plantsome.de/products/areca-palme-goldfruchtpalme-130cm?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=smart_shopping_de&gclid=CjwKCAjw9r-DBhBxEiwA9qYUpaMNCp8712CyZ57fjwinLc_-xqiJ4a1g0Pprjir0WxWtalvbMzEaDhoCX1UQAvD_BwE

3) Once you feel confident enough and have understood the concet of carbon capture through carbon gardening you can go one step further and add a liitle bit of more responsibility, grow your own vegetables , here is the list of 10 vegetables that can be grown with a little care, the advantage of these bggies is they dont require a huge space and can some of them can be even grown in an enclosed space in city and in your small backyard garden.https://www.plantsome.de/products/areca-palme-goldfruchtpalme-130cm?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=smart_shopping_de&gclid=CjwKCAjw9r-DBhBxEiwA9qYUpaMNCp8712CyZ57fjwinLc_-xqiJ4a1g0Pprjir0WxWtalvbMzEaDhoCX1UQAvD_BwE
You can easily buy a plant online or if you want to plant it on your own there is an entire set available to do so
https://www.baldur-garten.de/produkt/Tomaten/4660/Trends/Gemuese+und+Kraeuter/Gemuese+Pflanzen+A-Z/Tomaten/TOMACCIO-Tomate/detail.html?gclsrc=aw.ds&ds_rl=1278422&ds_rl=1278422&gclid=CjwKCAjw9r-DBhBxEiwA9qYUpdcSNEdmKyPGL8c9HTgsD-tUAbqOUhHz3sLzJhGAInWNPfvWVcywKRoCLUkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&et_uk=8d0ce805a9a141ff889146cb603beecc

4)If you have a little, medium to big size garden the next thing you can do is put on cover plants , the advantages of these plants is that they require little to no maintenance and are visually appealing to the eyes.Here is the list of plants to choose from with detailed instructions on what type of soil,fertilizer, etc to use for the best results and some of them grow particulary well under shady trees.Here is the list of plants to choose from https://www.thespruce.com/evergreen-ground-cover-plants-4582146

5)If you have a medium to big space for gardening there is alsoa possibility to include shrubs in the gardens as they are more sturdier compared to plants and some of them have equivalent carbon capture characteristics of that of trees, here is the list of shrubs to choose from dependig on the season you can grow it in.
https://www.gardendesign.com/shrubs/flowering.html

6)This practice is suitable for people who have open spaces available as trees require a relatively large amount of space to grow, here are some of the trees to choose from
https://getreprint.com/best-trees-absorb-co2/
Please do not plant a tree too close to the house a the roots need space to grip the soil and grow.

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# 3 Biochar
Biochar can be a considered similar to a solid fuel like coal and is used mainly used to generate heat and electricity through direct combustion.

Althought it make look very simple to make Biochar but it is made using a specific process to reduce contamination and store the carbon safely.

What is Biochar and how is it made ?

Biochar is produced using a process call Pyrolysis which takes place in absence of oxygen at a specific temperature range (200 to 800 degrees).
When biomass is burned in absence of oxygen there is no combustion so this biomass gets converted into 3 diferent forms (liqid-bio oil,solid -biochar and gaseous-syngas )
Under specific conditions bio oil yields of 60 to 70 wt% can be achived from a biomass feedstock, 15 to 25 wt% of Biochar and 10 to 15 % 0f syngas.

Why are we not producing Biochar more ?
Biochar and syngas are basically a byproduct in the process and can only be produced to a limited amount.

I think producing biochar at your home even if we consider that the individual has the experience, the right tools does not make sense as if you have 100 kg of biomass you will only produce maximum 25 kg of Biochar and this is considering the ideal situation with 100% process efficiency and no losses.

Land availability is another big factor for the use of BIOCHAR. Detailed info in this article here
https://www.inforse.org/europe/dieret/Biomass/biomass.html

CONCLUSION
I think the best results which we can yield out of theses 3 topics (For now considering only 2 ) is from carbon gardening and regenerative agriculture because if you see the trend now people are pushing more and more towards plant based products and bio products, so if we can appeal to them from the perspective of growing their own organic food , i think there is a room for great improvements in climate change mitigation and carbon capture.

There is one simple thing that we need to understand the problem is us, the rate at which we are producing carbon has increased exponentially and studies have proved that there is no such thing that if we think we will keep 100 huge DAC in a particular area and the temperature of Earth will not increase in the future.
The first step is to reduce the carbon footprint and then not by one particular technology but by an amagamation of technologies and methods like regenerative agriculture and others we can achieve the goal to mitigate the global phenomenon of climate change.

# Tutorial to make Biochar and more info.
[Part 1 : How to make Biochar](https://youtu.be/svNg5w7WY0k)
[Part 2 : Why to make Biochar](https://youtu.be/_IwEGvb1O00)
[Part 3 : The Carbon Cycle](https://youtu.be/E0Lj_SsYpto)
[Part 4 : The Biochar Facility](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWU9cl3LBGg&ab_channel=LivingWebFarms)
[Part 5 : Biochar and the greenhouse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvqaNSDwjo8&ab_channel=LivingWebFarms)