The US just invested more than $1 billion into carbon removal / The move represents a big step in the effort to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere—and slow down climate change.::undefined
Everyone here is mad that we’re doing this as if this is the only thing we’re doing. This… nor any of the other things suggested here… are either/or strategies. They’re all AND strategies.
People just wanna bitch.
Celebrate everything that is done to help slow down climate change and encourage more.
The problem is, that this technology is already being used to greenwash fossil fuels. There’s a gas power plant currently running that got subsidies and good press for building a CCS facility next to the power plant. Something like 1% of the emissions were actually sequestered, but millions were wasted.
If these subsidies are actually tied to reasonable requirements, I’m all in. History shows, though, that this is usually not the case.
Part of the problem with new technologies is that they’re inherently less efficient than the same technologies once they’ve been further developed. And the problem with that is that it takes millions of dollars develop and deploy new technologies.
This was once the biggest argument against solar and wind. It was expensive and markedly less efficient than coal. However, solar and wind are now pretty good and continuing to get better. All because people were willing to invest the many millions of dollars to develop those technologies.
This is almost always the argument with new technologies. But to make the argument that it’s a good reason to stop investing in a wide variety of technologies that could literally help save the world is shortsighted.
You completely missed my point.
This technology is currently used to greenwash fossil fuels. With tax payer money.
That is, you pay taxes, that are paid to big oil and gas firms to pollute the planet even further. The CCS is just window dressing. It does nothing. And that’s what I’m afraid will happen again.
CCS only makes sense, if the CO2 is actually pulled out of the carbon cycle. Otherwise it’s fraud.
But you cannot escape the tyranny of the second law of thermodynamics. It will always be more efficient to not release the carbon in the first place.
The other thing many people miss is that the article is ONLY about these specific DoE DAC hubs but other private ones already exist. ExxonMobile is running one in Wyoming.
Tallgrass Energy is building another one in Wyoming.
Those are just the private ones I’m aware of in my own state, which has a climate commitment of being carbon negative by 2050.
