#and even then it took 3 years and a fuckton of other big factors

[estelanel]

Percy vs. Fjord round 3, friends.

(Also just wanted to say once again - I don’t mean to throw shade at Percy. It’s just completely different character choices I’m trying to highlight, both being very interesting, and even more interesting to compare.)

So, both Percy and Fjord have very apparent issues with self-worth, but I feel like the difference is that Percy doesn’t believe in his inherent worth as a person, but believes in the value of his specific skill set - and Fjord is pretty much the exact opposite.

Percy not throwing the pepperbox is only half of it. I’m thinking of how he was continuously frustrated and even pissed at Scanlan to have lost it, instead of being relieved that he got out of a demon contract. And I’m thinking of how, after learning about Orthax, after seeing Ripley and what she had become, after literally having the ‘bad ending’ of a demon contract play out in front of his eyes (and dying in the process, too), he still took her weapon and continued to use it. He didn’t care that it was still kind of linked to Orthax, he didn’t care that he took damage from misfire - it was too good of a weapon, too good of an opportunity. Percy gambled with contracts because he was a) kind of greedy for knowledge and power, b) arrogant enough to think that he could probably smart his way out of a contract, and c) self-deprecating enough to think that his soul was worth barely a dime anyway, so bargaining with it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Fjord has always been convinced that the powers he got from Uk’otoa were his only worthwile contribution to the group. Unlike Percy, who thinks very highly of his intellect, Fjord doesn’t have much faith in his skills outside of those powers. But I’m also thinking of what Travis said on Talks - Fjord very much wants to live, and not on Uk’otoa’s increasingly weird terms, but on his own. Throwing the falchion took a fuckton of bravery, because he willingly, deliberately, and consciously gave up everything he believes makes him valuable to the M9. But that doesn’t mean that he does not also think that he inherently deserves to live on his own terms - and, as I talked about in one of my last rants, one of those terms is moral integrity (which, as I also talked about, isn’t something that usually factors much into Percy’s decisions). Fjord tried to gamble with his contract but very quickly recognized that blackmailing Uk’otoa didn’t work, and then he essentially bailed.

And I think that might also be a part of ‘something that Percy never pulled off’. It’s not only that Percy never managed to give up on a powerful weapon that promised might and knowledge. It’s also that Percy never managed to admit to himself that he had found his intellectual match. (I mean, come on. He thought he could out-deceive an 800-year-old being literally called the Diseased Deceiver.) But like - how could he? Since he didn’t think his life had inherent worth, admitting to a failure of his intellect would literally mean giving up the only thing that he thought still gave him worth. I feel like Percy clung on to his cleverness and deftness and tinkering skills so desperately because he thought that this was the only thing he had going for himself - the thing that earned him, like, the right to his personal place in the prime material plane. And Fjord, on the other hand, was only able to give up all of his powers because he thought his life had inherent worth. He might think he’s a weak, boring burden right now, but I still think the basic belief of fundamentally deserving to live even without any powers is out of the question. And I’m not sure if Percy has that belief.

[missweber]

Here’s the final part of this story for Day 7 (Free Day) of @lardo-week! Please excuse any typos, but I am falling asleep as I type. AO3 version goes up tomorrow. I had good intentions, but Benadryl.

(Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6)

Read the entire thing on AO3

Chapter 7 - to arrive where we started

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time"

–T.S. Eliot

A year after Lardo graduated, her bà ngoại moved into a retirement community. It wasn't quite assisted living, but assistance was available. 

At first, Lardo's mom looked at it as a failure on her own part. As a dutiful daughter, she should be the one to look after her mother in her old age just as her mother had looked after her during infancy.

Lardo knew all too well what it was like to struggle with the idea that what you thought you should do wasn't always the right thing to do. 

Bà ngoại had laughed aside the idea as she patted mom's hand. "We would murder each other, my precious girl. Besides, I'm going because I want go and before I have to go. And all of my friends are there. I'll be able to play cards every day, if I like."

Oh, yes. Cards. Lardo had seen bà ngoại at the card table. Bà ngoại at the card table was like Lardo at the pong table. 

It didn't take much imagination to see a younger bà ngoại kicking everyone's asses at flip cup. 

Scratch that. It didn't take much imagination to see bà ngoại kicking everyone asses now.

"What are you smiling at, child?" Bà ngoại asked with an innocence that fooled absolutely no one.

"The way you're going to totally dominate the canasta table. So, do you need any help moving? I know some big strong guys who owe me a favor or five."

And so it was that all four foot ten of bà ngoại led a procession of current and former hockey players down the halls of the Fern Hill Retirement Community. Lardo wasn't sure what grapevine had been called into play, but all of her bà ngoại's friends had found some reason to pass through that part of the building. 

Later, Lardo would swear she saw one woman fan herself like she was Blanche from the Golden Girls.

If the smugness radiating off of bà ngoại could be converted into energy, all of Boston would be shining like the sun.

Bà ngoại had few enough things that none of the guys had to make more than two trips. Ransom and Holster took their leave as soon as they were done, as did Snowy, but from the look of things, Tater had gotten himself adopted by a couple of elderly Russian widows, while Bitty had locked in on the community's most avid bakers as if he were a butter-seeking missile. She wasn't sure where Jack and Shitty had gone off to, but they could look after themselves.

The larger pieces of furniture had been set where they needed to be with little fuss (except for one carved wooden table which had to be set just so), and all the boxes were placed in the appropriate spots as decreed by Lardo's clipboard.

"Do you need any help unpacking, bà ngoại?"

Bà ngoại waved her off even as she dug into the one box that she had carried herself. "No... actually yes. I would love it if you got my bed made up. I have a few things I need to do before I can call this place home, and then I think I will take a nap."

It didn't take long to find the sheets and make the bad, thanks the clearly labeled boxes. When she returned to the living room, she smiled to see the old photo of her ông ngoại already set up on the carved wood table, right where it belonged, surrounded by the familiar vases, bowls, and incense burner. 

But bà ngoại wasn't done with whatever it was she needed to make this place a home. She held a large framed picture to her chest and was clearly deciding between two possible walls. 

"There, I think," bà ngoại said, pointing to the wall next to the kitchenette. "Can you help me hang this?"

This was a framed picture of a blobby, spiky animal—supposedly a triceratops—in faded pinks, yellows and oranges. It was an unskilled drawing, but Lardo could see the beginnings of a sense of color, of form, of light.

"Yeah," she said, voice thick. "Let's do this."

There was measuring, and marking, and squabbling, and a couple of bent nails, but eventually the picture was up.

"There. Now this is home," bà ngoại declared. Her late husband's photo and her granddaughter's drawing were both where they should be, and apparently that was all it took.

Lardo hugged her gently, remembering when bà ngoại had been the taller one and she was the smaller one. 

Lardo had been Larissa back then, a little girl who had loved dinosaurs almost as much as she loved her bà ngoại.

"Do you remember how you always said you wanted to be a paleontologist when you grew up?"

Lardo sort of remembered that, but what she actually remembered was—

"You always used to get so mad when your parents told people how you used to pronounce it!" bà ngoại said gleefully.

"Arrrgh!" Lardo cringed in embarrassment and tugged at her hair. "They said it was cute! I hate being called cute!" 

The way bà ngoại smiled said that she knew damned well just how much Lardo hated it—and found it cute.

"I remember how much you loved making up stories with your toy dinosaurs. Do you still have that big plush one?"

"Mr. Steggy?" She scoffed. "Heck yeah I still have him!"

"Good. I thought it was a little sad when you stopped being so interested in dinosaurs."

"Mr. Steggy is forever. And now I'm into ducks, which are, like, stealth dinosaurs."

She still remembered the little thrill when she learned that dinosaurs were still around in the form of birds. 

They hadn't gone extinct.

They just weren't what you expected them to turn out to be. But they were still there.

She hugged her bà ngoại goodbye and went to collect her boys.

The others assumed that her thoughtful mood on the way home was due to the idea of moving her grandmother into a retirement community, but that was only part of it.

She thought about all the times her family asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. 

At first, she had wanted to be a paleontologist the way other kids wanted to be astronauts, back when it wasn't the reality of the job you wanted but the cool factor of ACTUAL MONSTERS or SPACESHIPS.

Then, there was the dream of being an artist.

And fuck it, she was an artist. She just also happened to be an equipment manager for a professional hockey team, a job that wasn't in any way, shape, or form on her list of dream jobs at any point ever.

But, via a 'happy accident,' George had mentioned something to Thirdy about needing to train up a replacement for Stu, and Thirdy had said something to Marty, and...

And because a previous 'happy accident' had led her to Jack and a job that got her away from that miserable deep-fryer, here she was.

She had taken to the job like a duck-billed dinosaur to water. It hadn't taken long for the team to take to her. Of course it helped that Jack already loved her, Tater already adored her, Snowy already admired her, and Poots already (rightfully) feared her.

She was jolted out of her musings when Jack pulled up in front of Haus 2.0.

"Later, gator?" Shitty asked. Lardo didn't say anything, but gave him a lingering kiss. 

With training camp starting up soon, it made more sense to crash with Jack and Bitty during the week. In another year, she and Shitty would probably be ready to find a place of their own, so it didn't make sense to move into our out of either place completely.

Jack and Bitty had to go on a grocery run, which Lardo suspected was an excuse to give her some alone time.

Jack was a good bro, really he was.

Lardo let herself into the condo. The picture hanging next to the kitchen pass-through was familiar enough that she didn't usually notice it anymore, but now she stopped to look at it.

Bitty had declared that Still Life With a Fuckton of Jam was one of his favorite graduation presents, and the fact that he hung it by his beloved kitchen said more than a 'thank you' ever could.

She passed by her Junior Show sky-scape as she cut through the living room. She loved that it was owned by someone who saw it being made and who wanted to hang on to the memory of the making of it.

No, this wasn't what she pictured when she thought about being an artist when she grew up, but that dream was still very much alive. Just not in the way she had expected it to be.

It was better. She would never say this out loud, because it would completely nuke her cred, but it was all tangled up in love. 

Even when she was doing work for hire, it was still about the people. She still went to the Macey's used bookstore where the steps she had painted enticed young readers up to a nook furnished with cushions and hidey-holes. And every time, Macey still gushed about how she had wanted a staircase like that in her bookstore ever since she saw one as a child, and now she had the store of her dreams, and wasn't it wonderful?

She was halfway through another commission, this one for a friend of Snowy's who needed a re-do on his mask after getting traded to the Aeros. Jukes was super-psyched about the retro-futurist space-themed design she was doing in the Aeros' silver and red, so psyched Lardo half-suspected that kid-Jukes would have said he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up (possibly a hockey-playing astronaut—he was Canadian, after all).

Snowy had taken one look at the design and had declared that by the end of the season, Lardo would have a three year waiting list, and that if he weren't so superstitious about his current mask, he'd be next in line after Jukes.

Having another job (one that she loved) gave her the freedom to pick and choose the art she wanted to do the way she wanted to do it and for the people she wanted to do it for. One day, she might be able to do it full time and she really hoped she would get there.

The important thing was, she was an artist. It was an essential part of who she was and who she would be, just like Bitty didn't need to own a bakery to be a baker.

She flopped down on the bed in Jack's guest room (which was already halfway to being 'her' room). She was exhausted enough to want to nap, but too keyed up to do so.

So, she picked up her bedside sketch pad, flipped to a mostly empty page, and began doodling.

She started with a triceratops.

[inktae]

⇢ veg update 2

I totally forgot I was going to do these.. so here you go, a little over three months since I took my decision of giving up meat. I know a few of you are interested, so here you go! :)

It has been three months since I decided to cut out meat cold turkey, and as someone who was only slightly obsessed with chicken and did not care about any other type of meat, I have to say that it has been fairly easy. I definitely do not recommend that for someone who eats meat more regularly (I only ate chicken and around 3 times a week) but turning vegetarian was the easiest choice I have ever made and I still stand by that.

I actually planned on being vegetarian for a few months, but less than a month after beginning my journey I had already cut out cow’s milk (another thing I wasn’t too much of a fan of, since it always made my stomach bloat even if it was lactose free) and was only eating egg very occasionally as I still tried to figure out how to eat - where and how to get the nutrients I needed for a healthy lifestyle. it took hours upon hours of research but I am proud to say that I have it somewhat figured it out now.

I went into it too scared, and I shouldn’t have! many people around me and online scared me about deficiencies that, honestly, can easily be taken care of, and you do not need to be a millionaire for that. what I have learned is that as long as you do your research and keep a somewhat regular check-up with your doctor (I was already used to this anyway, as someone who needs regular check-ups) you will be okay. of course, each body reacts differently, but personally speaking, I did not notice any crazy changes, nor I ever felt weak or like my body was lacking something. going into a healthy, fulfilling way of eating was absolutely essential for that.

for the longest time, before I ever considered it seriously, I thought about veganism and how would I eat were I to turn vegan. I only truly liked three foods: chicken, rice and pasta (yes, it was that bad), so that made me wonder: what the hell would I eat? would there be any options for me? would I have no other option but to starve? and since I could never figure it out, I always dropped the idea of veganism even though it has attracted me for more than a year, probably. 

but I slowly started changing my eating habits, trained my taste buds and introduced more vegetables into my diet, and the idea of veganism stopped being so far-fetched. still, there was tons of research I needed to do, and months of studying basic nutrition, reading countless meal plans and learning recipes and watching insightful videos have finally led to a huge amount of variety and color in my meals, way more than before, and looking back I can say that it was my very generalized view of veganism (the one portrayed by the media) what made me think in the first place that they only ate salads and expensive, organic foods haha.

just out of curiosity, I actually decided to follow my carbs, proteins and fats for a week (last week, actually) and I find it unbelievable how easily I can reach a healthy amount of each without looking too much into it. all I did was insert what I’d eaten throughout the day in an app and I find it insane how easily I reached past the 60g mark of protein (that’s actually a bit more than I should.. lol) this might be obvious for some, but for me it certainly wasn’t, especially with the countless questions I get about my supposed lack of protein / vitamins / etc, which inevitably made me doubt my choices more than once. no, peeps. I believed the same, but it is possible to eat a balanced diet as long as you are well informed! :) it is all about making sure that you’re eating a good amount of veggies (I like to eat a lot, so it makes me happy that I can make myself giant meals with veggies. I always go for broccoli, carrots, cauliflower and zucchini and I tend to eat them with a nice, spicy homemade sauce), fats (healthy / unsaturated fats are sooo important, please never cut them out. nuts are an amazing snack full of healthy fats!), carbs (even though they’re not really essential, they do help you feel energized and they can easily fill you for the day. besides, they’re yummy haha. basically cereals, rice, bread, homemade pizza, stuff like that), and of course, protein (lentils, beans and tofu. the latter is my weakness to be honest. I love love love tofu and how versatile it is! there are so many amazing recipes out there to make it delicious).

there is no need to splurge into expensive foods, either. if you want to eat a bunch of replacements, then yes, veganism will be an expensive lifestyle, but if you keep your replacements down to a handful (the only replacement I buy is vegan mayonnaise, and vegan cheese very occasionally. to give you an idea, they do not cost me more than 3 euros each) you will spend just as much as you would in a ‘normal’ lifestyle, if not less.

anyway, moving on - the positive changes I have noticed since late march are only a handful, but still very impactful:

I have gotten slimmer, though I would say it’s more like my body is going back to its natural weight. because of medical reasons and a certain pill I have been taking since 2012 for my body to function properly, I started putting on weight very fast, and it was something that was out of my control. ever since I started taking this pill I gained an amount of 10kg (22 pounds) throughout my university journey, and that excess I gained through the pill is what I have been trying to get rid of, which has become significantly easier with a vegan lifestyle. even though it has only been three months, I already lost more than half of it - 7 kilos, 15 pounds!! and I promise you that I have not been starving myself or anything remotely close. sometimes I even have five meals a day. :) it’s such a drastic change to a few crazy diets I tried out a couple years ago, which only consisted of tuna and whole wheat sandwiches. I’m glad I finally figured out how to eat a fuckton (there’s no other way to put it ahaha) while still being healthy and keeping to the amounts my body needs. I mainly owe that to veganism, because it’s what made me start studying nutrition and healthy eating in the first place.  

(quick disclaimer: I need to address that weight loss does not equal happiness / is not the only right way to live. besides becoming vegan, losing weight was also a personal goal of mine because of external factors I already explained - how more than losing a few pounds, I am just trying to go back to the natural weight I had before. and hey, even if you only want to lose a few pounds, that is also okay as long as you are doing it the healthy way. the choices I make are purely meant to look out for my body, not to damage it, and I would never ever encourage starving or restricting yourself too harshly (sometimes, a few moderate restrictions are needed, like I did with the crazy unhealthy snacking I had going on a few months ago). keeping your weight, wanting to lose some, striving to gain a few pounds - all of that is okay as long as you do it right and take care of yourself. the only thing that matters is that you are looking out for your body, whatever shape it is ^^)

another change - headaches, or should I say, the lack of. it is crazy to think that a few months ago I used to take two / three painkillers a week because my head was always killing me, with the occasional migraine that forced me to close all of the blinds and stay in the dark for a few hours, with no possibility of even checking my phone because all lights bothered me. I am so, so happy to say that that has changed, and it has probably been my favorite change of them all. so far I have only taken two painkillers in these three months. which, for me, is absolutely insane!! to know that those headaches that have been bothering me since I was 14 stemmed from an unhealthy diet is simply baffling. I had to go through so many brain scans trying to figure out why my head hurt so much all the time, when the solution was right in my face. I am just beyond relieved that I managed to figure it out. besides ethics, this is another big reason for me continuing with this lifestyle. I cannot go back to the crazy headaches, not now that I found the root of the problem, and especially not now that I figured out a way to eat that I enjoy and that helps me avoid migraines.

and lastly, I noticed I have way more energy than before. getting up early is not so much of a problem anymore. I have always been a night owl, but I am quickly becoming a morning person, which I never thought would ever happen ahaha. I do have my lazy days, and sometimes I go to the gym and I am unable to do more than twenty minutes of cardio, but for someone who is somewhat sedentary, I have to say that this change is huge, and I am really happy with it. I look forward to using this crazy energy I have much more, and hopefully develop more physical endurance, since I still have a bit of a hard time keeping up with exercise in general.

I am very proud of my choice overall, even though I’m still learning and adapting to this lifestyle (there are still many changes to be done, but that will come with time, no rush), and I still stand by the reasons I started doing this in the first place (basically all of them: ethics, the industry, the environment, and of course, health). as someone who has a hard time being consistent in general, the fact that I have kept this up taught me that I can be strong willed if I really want to be.

I also feel very passionate about showing people that veganism doesn’t have to be scary, and that not all vegans are like the ones that represent the lifestyle, who are sadly more toxic than anything. loud, obnoxious vegans will always be the ones heard above us quieter ones, and I just want people to know that not every vegan is self-entitled or arrogant or thinks they’re better than everyone else. at least in my case, I am just proud of my own journey and the choice I made for myself and for the animals. it has nothing to do with how I feel about other people or how they eat. hell, none of my friends are vegan and absolutely nothing has changed between us (well, except the places we go to eat haha). not gonna lie, I am always afraid of saying I’m into veganism because I fear it will make people see me in a bad light, when I have never had ill intentions. but I just hope this can change someday and that veganism stops being portrayed as extreme, as a ridiculous fad, as a cult - you get the point. I see it as something beautiful you’re doing for the Earth and for your body, nothing else. ^^

and if you are interested in the way I eat, I suggest checking out my instagram! I post the meals I make there (mainly to keep myself motivated to keep learning new recipes and such)  

(^^^^ the fact that I actually made that is still unbelievable to me. last year I almost burnt the kitchen while making coffee)

to finish up, if anyone is interested in veganism in general, besides famous documentaries like cowspiracy and forks over knives, there were two videos that really turned around my mindset. of course, there are small details I don’t really agree on, but the overall message of these videos is very impactful and they did push me towards doing more research on how to start transitioning to veganism. those videos are why I’m a vegan and reasons to go vegan. what I loved the most about these two videos is how unbiased both are - they present facts, not opinions, and they are not painfully blunt or offensive in any way. it’s your choice what to do with these facts, and I think that’s the main core of veganism - it all depends on how you feel and react towards these facts presented to you. I simply reacted by wanting to become vegan, and no one pressured me or brainwashed me in any way. I was presented with facts, I researched on them, found myself convinced by some things more than others, and when I had all the information compiled I decided what to do about it myself - no one did it for me. :)

this got way too long, sorry guys. but I hope that whoever read until this point found it somewhat insightful, my aim is always to help and to clarify myths of healthy eating and veganism. to conclude, I still stand by this decision being the best one I have taken in a long, long time, probably all my life. <3

[articlesofnote]

carbon sequestration by the numbers, part 2 of ???

In the first post in this series, I did a bunch of back-of-the-envelope math to try and get a rough answer the the question “What would it take to get 651 billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere?”  Looking at that question from the perspective of energy costs, the quick answer is “a fuckton” with the specific answer being something like 36 million terawatt-hours, or about 227 years of human energy production at 2019 levels. For this post I wanted to try and figure out what kind of USD investment would be required to build the infrastructure for the “industrial carbon sequestration” that I was talking about in Part 1 of this series.  Next time I’ll talk more specifically about what that infrastructure might look like, but in researching this post I had one fairly specific goal: to determine point estimates for capital expenditure (or capex) and operating expenses (opex) of a typical reasonably modern oil refinery in terms of millions of metric tonnes per year (Mt/yr) of refining output.  With these numbers, one can then scale up appropriately to a particular desired output and get an idea of the dollar cost to build and operate that production infrastructure; however, it should be noted that this isn’t a terribly precise way to get an estimate, as I’m quite confident that the scale of investment required to build this infrastructure will have major effects on the overall cost of the investment.  I’ll discuss this more towards the end. You might be wondering why I chose to look at oil refining as the “reference industry” from which to derive cost estimates.  The quick answer for that is that oil refining (and chemical processing more generally) is quite similar in many respects to the kind of process(es) I’m imagining being used for industrial carbon sequestration. Anyway, without further preamble, the numbers I’ve come up with are as follows: for each Mt/yr of refining capacity, you’ve got to invest about $2.4 billion 2020 USD to build it in the first place (capex), followed by about $120 million 2020 USD per year to run it (opex).  This DOES NOT include the cost of raw materials, which are a huge determinant of the price of the finished product (more on that below) These figures are based mainly on North American (Canada and USA) refining industry figures, particularly [1] and [2] below.  To get the capex figure, I first looked at [1] which discusses, among other sections, the actual and projected costs of several at-the-time new refineries and expansions in Canada.  These projects seem to be intended mainly to process heavy oils and bitumen due to the expansion of tar sand oil extraction in the early 2000′s and provided a range of capital costs from $0.45 - $1.59bn 2009 USD per Mt/yr.  Another bit of information comes from the construction costs of the Shell Pearl GTL plant in Qatar [3], coming in at around $1.86bn 2012 USD per Mt/yr capacity.  Rounding that up to $2.0bn 2009 USD and then factoring in inflation since then (about 21% from 2009 to 2020) gives us the final $2.4bn 2020 USD per Mt/yr figure.  The opex figure is mainly derived from [2], particularly the “U.S. petroleum refining/marketing general operating expenses“ and the “U.S. and foreign petroleum refining statistics“ data from April 2011.  This is one of the areas where my ignorance around financial reporting is showing itself: via three different methods, I came up with three wildly different numbers for opex per Mt/yr without being sure which one is the most reasonable.  For example, [1] gives a figure of $29m 2009 CAD of “investment” required per Mt/yr, while [4], as near as I can figure, gives something closer to $8-16m 2020 USD per Mt/yr. Using [2] gave a baseline range of between $73-$118m 2009 USD per Mt/yr, so I took $100m 2009 USD per Mt/yr as a nice round midpoint then applied the ~1.2x inflation factor to it. A few more interesting statistics shook out of this research; from [1] and [5], we see that about 150-180 people are directly employed for 1 Mt/yr production and from [2] we can assume that the average US refinery produces around 10 Mt/yr - in 2009 the average was 9.3 Mt/yr but the trend is toward fewer, larger, more complex refineries so 10 Mt/yr might even be on the low side at this point. * * * At this point, we’ve nailed down what I consider to be reasonable estimates for capex and opex, but I’ve left out a big, big piece of the cost estimating: how much will the inputs to the process - CO2, H2O, and power - cost? Remember, the whole point of this project is to get carbon out of the atmosphere!  Fortunately, the Carbon Engineering paper I referenced last time [6] gives us an answer for the CO2 part, at least: $0.69bn capex and $26m opex (2018 USD) per Mt/yr. We’ll need about 3.06 Mt of CO2 for every Mt of finished product (see assumptions discussion for why), which adds on a cost of $2.2b 2020 USD per Mt/yr capex and $83m 2020 USD per Mt/yr opex for the CO2.  As for the H2O, while there are currently many sources of water it is certainly in the spirit of this project to avoid using fossil water or surface freshwater if it can be avoided.  Given the size of the oceans, we can assume there’s all the water we need for this project if we’re willing to desalinate it.  No need to boil the ocean, in other words - just a miniscule fraction of it! From [10] we have figures on the Carlsbad desalination plant: 189,000 m3 of water produced per day from a capex of $0.9b 2014 USD and an opex of $58m/yr.  As we need 1.48 Mt H2O per Mt finished product, the overall capex needed is $21m 2020 USD (that’s millions, not billions) and opex is $1.4m per Mt/yr.  Do I hear you saying “damn, that’s cheap AF?” You’re not wrong, as far as getting water goes, but the real problem with the H2O is that getting the hydrogen out of water so that you can put it into hydrocarbons is massively expensive in terms of power consumption.  Basically, the price of the water itself can effectively be ignored in the cost accounting compared to the price of turning it into hydrogen.  We’ll get into THAT next time! Finally, the last input: power!  I haven’t estimated the power consumption of any of these processes yet - this is already getting really long, so I’ll kick that to next time.  Suffice it to say that carbon-free power (solar or wind) is getting cheap as hell, which is great for this project as the final cost of the finished product will be heavily dependent on power costs.  According to [11], grid-scale solar ranges from $32-42 per MWh, and wind can range from $28-54 per MWh.  I believe this figure represents a combination of opex and amortized capex over the expected life of a given installation, so you can just “drop it in” to add energy costs if you can figure out how much power you need.  For example, using the total energy requirement for carbon sequestration from Part 1 (3.6e7 TWh, or 3.6e13 MWh), assuming $40 per MWh energy costs we find that the cost for the electricity required to get all the carbon out of the atmosphere is a paltry $1.44 quadrillion dollars - roughly 53x the current US national debt.  Better start buying bonds, folks! * * * Ok, so, some discussion of my assumptions, as promised.  I conjecture that, should my back-of-the-envelope vision become reality, the capex estimate will prove too high and the opex estimate too low.  Basically, the magnitude of the infrastructure required to make carbon sequestration happen at the scale it needs to happen will almost certainly represent, in its construction and operation, such a large undertaking that the economy of the planet will be fundamentally restructured to support it.  This makes a certain amount of philosophical sense, if nothing else: as long as humanity has had industrial economies, they’ve been based on burning fossil fuels.  What this project proposes is, in essence, unburning all of the fuels we burned to get our economy to this point - a truly radical shift in perspective. More practically, the size of the endeavor will likely mean that economies of scale will have a big impact on costs, specifically lowering them.  For example, if a standard “sequestration plant” can be designed in a way that it can be relatively easily replicated, capital expenses can go down dramatically.  On the other hand, since the end-to-end process I envision does depend on extant-but-not-yet-mass-produced technology, it could well work out that capital costs are initially much higher than anticipated.  Likewise with operating expenses - this project could drive demand for chemical industrial labor so high that operating expenses are much higher than anticipated, while at the same time the ever-decreasing costs of carbon-free power could turn out to have a bigger impact on costs than anything else.  Basically, about all I can say for sure is that once the ball gets rolling on making this happen, the assumptions this analysis is based on will almost certainly be invalidated.  I’ve been aiming towards conservatism in my estimates - when in doubt, plan for the worst - so hopefully we would see this project turn out to be cheaper (and maybe a lot cheaper!) than I anticipate.  Just to give one example: I’m treating each necessary process separately in terms of capex and opex, which means that I am 100% certain I’ve duplicated costs in my estimates - but how much of an impact that has, I can’t yet say. * * *

A final technical note: To get the 3.06 Mt CO2 per Mt product I started with the assumption that we’d want to end up with the average blend of refined products suggested by [9].  I simplified that down to a blend of six products: still gas, hydrocarbon liquid gas, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, and paraffin.  Each of these products has  characteristic physical properties [7] [8] and represents a range of different hydrocarbon compounds. [7]  One possibly-unsound assumption I made is that each of these categories could be represented using a single “prototype” hydrocarbon molecule.  From that assumption, I determined the carbon and hydrogen composition by mass for a prototypical “tonne” of finished product: about 836 kg of C and 164 kg of H.  These serve as the basis for subsequent calculations. NEXT TIME: Just what the hell am I “envisioning,” exactly? I.e. what are the processes that might be used and how might they all fit together? How much power will be used to run this process? Why is hydrogen so goddamn expensive?!  And so much more! * * * References: [1] Fundamentals of Refining - Canadian Fuels Association 2013 [2] US Energy Information Administration - Refining and Marketing 2011 ref T28 and T29 (Excel spreadsheets) [3] Quora: How much does it cost to build an oil refinery, answer #2 [4] Royal Dutch Shell Q1 2020 - Financial Statements and Operating Info (ref p.13 - Operating Expenses - Oil Products) and Q1 2020 Results (ref p.5 - Oil Products Sales Volumes) [5] Bureau of Labor Statistics - Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing [6] A Process for Capturing CO2 from the Atmosphere [7] Chemical and Physical Properties of Refined Petroleum Products (pdf) [8] Fuels - Densities and Specific Volumes [9] Refining Crude Oil - Inputs and Outputs [10] The Cost of Desalination [11] Lazard - Levelized Cost of Energy/Storage 2019