The energy required to take carbon out of the atmosphere is at best, double what it took to put it in the atmosphere in the first place. There’s seriously strong economic reasons that this is a bad idea.
There are hard limits on recapture efficiency. The only way to make it remove more than it creates is to use energy like geothermal. Even then, the production of a carbon capture facility generates enough emissions that it would take years of constantly running, and you’d only ever reach it if you’re using 100% clean energy to power it.
We’re at the point where we can’t prevent the consequences of climate change. We can only prevent it from getting worse and mitigating the effects. Even if we stopped all CO2 emissions this second, we’d still be suffering for years.
It’s worthwhile for us to look at technologies which can reverse our existing impact to some degree. Finding a way to safely and intelligently remove carbon from the atmosphere may be more expensive, but it has the possibility of fixing our climate much sooner than otherwise, and that’s worth it.
It’s important though that we don’t use it as an excuse to stay the same. The cost of doing this “cleaning” needs to be factored into fossil fuel price so transitioning away from it accelerates. Creating some additional cushion while we continue to do that would be very beneficial.
The energy required to take carbon out of the atmosphere is at best, double what it took to put it in the atmosphere in the first place. There’s seriously strong economic reasons that this is a bad idea.
And it’s perfectly normal for technology to advance and become more effective and efficient over time.
There are hard limits on recapture efficiency. The only way to make it remove more than it creates is to use energy like geothermal. Even then, the production of a carbon capture facility generates enough emissions that it would take years of constantly running, and you’d only ever reach it if you’re using 100% clean energy to power it.
Grind up basalt slightly more than we normally do. Spread it out.
It’s exothermic.
Rate limited, but more than enough to undo the damage if we stop digging up 95% of fossil fuels.
We’re at the point where we can’t prevent the consequences of climate change. We can only prevent it from getting worse and mitigating the effects. Even if we stopped all CO2 emissions this second, we’d still be suffering for years.
It’s worthwhile for us to look at technologies which can reverse our existing impact to some degree. Finding a way to safely and intelligently remove carbon from the atmosphere may be more expensive, but it has the possibility of fixing our climate much sooner than otherwise, and that’s worth it.
It’s important though that we don’t use it as an excuse to stay the same. The cost of doing this “cleaning” needs to be factored into fossil fuel price so transitioning away from it accelerates. Creating some additional cushion while we continue to do that would be very beneficial.