codecogs equations

lördag 4 september 2021

Back of the Envelope: Carbon Capture

How difficult will carbon capture be? The principle is that a fan blows air through some process that captures the CO2 out of it. I am assuming some things:

  • The fan operates 24/7
  • The wind speed through the fan is constant at 5 m/s
  • The process captures 100% of the CO2

fan_size = 1 # m^2
wind_speed = 5 # m/s
co2_concentration = 450e-6 # i.e. ppm
air_density = 1.3e-3 # kg/m^3
s_per_year = 3600 * 24 * 365 # s/y
co2_per_year_per_m2 = fan_size * wind_speed * air_density * \
co2_concentration * s_per_year # kg / y
print("CO2 captured per year per m^2 fan:", co2_per_year_per_m2, "kg")
person_co2_per_year = 1.0e4 # kg/y (US: 1.5e4, EU27: 6.7e3, China: 7.2e3)
m2_per_person_per_year = person_co2_per_year / co2_per_year_per_m2
print("m^2 per year required per person:", m2_per_person_per_year, "m^2")
This gives me the result that each m^2 of fan surface captures 92 kg of CO2 per year, and therefore about 110 m^2 is needed per person. 

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