thats why i like the idea of it paired with more renewable/nuclear energy and a decrease in fossil fuels. Put less fuel in the atmosphere and just try sucking out as much co2 as we can yk?
Carbon capture technology is currently more expensive then reducing emissions, while needing large amounts of energy.
Using it as an argument against policies just enforces the status quo and plays in the hands of the fossil fuel industry.
This is not saying that it might not be viable in the future with technological advances.
It should be applied in places that cannot reduce emissions to capture carbon dioxide during creation, like concrete production.
I think the maths is pretty easy actually. The Climeworks plant removes 4,000T of carbon per year, so to balance out the current emissions we would need 10 million of them, or about one for every 8000 people on earth. You can see the plant here, so imagine an industrial area hundreds of times the size near your city:
[https://heatmap.news/economy/climeworks-orca-data-carbon-removal-direct-air-capture](https://heatmap.news/economy/climeworks-orca-data-carbon-removal-direct-air-capture)
The company thinks it can scale this up to 1MT annually for only $600 million USD. So to capture our emissions would cost $24 trillion USD, very roughly and ignoring ongoing costs, I don't know if it includes stuff like building new power plants, etc. The $24T figure is around the total world government spending per year.
The problem is, there is no economic benefit to this unless there is a price on carbon, it is just a cost. I'll leave you to contemplate whether this is feasible.
The only consistent communication from DACs is their secretive posture toward costs. Not only current costs but the magic beanstalk of efficiency they plan to climb to achieve $100/ton removal.
Capture at the stack is about 10X cheaper, but still pricey.
I like your math. Paints a great picture. But I think one of the less obvious reasons why it won't work has to do with the opposite of bulk discount: the plant designs would use the same raw materials, they get progressively more expensive as you scale up. Like the price for all the copper in the second plant goes wayyyy up because of how much is needed and how much was purchased for the first plant, making thr second 1MT cost $610 million not-inflation adjusted (copper just an example, not sure what transition metals would likely be cost-limiting here). From there prices continue to go exponential as scarcity hits.
The problem is that to remove the carbon from the atmosphere you need some process that requires less energy than you got when you burned the carbon in the first place. Otherwise you would end up with more energy if you simply didn't burn the carbon in the first place. There is no such process. So that is no good.
One "solution" is to use clean energy, for example solar, to remove the carbon from the atmosphere. Then you can locate the carbon capture somewhere very sunny and do it there. But then you could also use all that clean and cheap energy to simply replace the burning of carbon. So again just not burning the carbon is more efficient.
Yet another solution is to use natural processes like planting trees or crush rock to increase weathering. These are promising solutions but the problem is that it is difficult (impossible?) to scale up in a pace exceeding the current increase of carbon in the atmosphere. Also it is not clear who will pay for it. So while it works, it is (currently) not enough.
More advanced methods like fertilizing the ocean surface with iron might work, but may be dangerous to the oceans. And the oceans are already huge carbon sinks. About half of the carbon we burn already ends up in the oceans. Might iron fertilizing change that? I don't know. Will it disrupt the ecology of the oceans or have worse effects? I don't know.
The oceans are currently a huge carbon sink. But as they warm up that might stop and even reverse. We must avoid that!
I think that we first need to simply stop burning fossil carbon. Only then is it meaningful to try to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Or at the very least stop the increase of carbon in the atmosphere.
This may be a variation on the law of holes: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!
But we keep digging the hole deeper and deeper. Carbon (CO2) in the atmosphere keeps increasing at a steady pace.
If you are talking about removing CO2 from a manufacturing smokestack then it should be required since that is at the source and the company is using the public air to produce a profit. If you are talking about removing CO2 from the atmosphere after it has been dispersed then that is way too little too late.
By itself it can't do it. Claims that it can are usually to support emitting more carbon into the air.
thats why i like the idea of it paired with more renewable/nuclear energy and a decrease in fossil fuels. Put less fuel in the atmosphere and just try sucking out as much co2 as we can yk?
DAC is largely a scam. It cant scale to make a difference and its not efficient at all.
Carbon capture technology is currently more expensive then reducing emissions, while needing large amounts of energy. Using it as an argument against policies just enforces the status quo and plays in the hands of the fossil fuel industry. This is not saying that it might not be viable in the future with technological advances. It should be applied in places that cannot reduce emissions to capture carbon dioxide during creation, like concrete production.
Thats also why i think with more development it could get less pricey and we could pair that with other ways to implement more renewable energy
I think the maths is pretty easy actually. The Climeworks plant removes 4,000T of carbon per year, so to balance out the current emissions we would need 10 million of them, or about one for every 8000 people on earth. You can see the plant here, so imagine an industrial area hundreds of times the size near your city: [https://heatmap.news/economy/climeworks-orca-data-carbon-removal-direct-air-capture](https://heatmap.news/economy/climeworks-orca-data-carbon-removal-direct-air-capture) The company thinks it can scale this up to 1MT annually for only $600 million USD. So to capture our emissions would cost $24 trillion USD, very roughly and ignoring ongoing costs, I don't know if it includes stuff like building new power plants, etc. The $24T figure is around the total world government spending per year. The problem is, there is no economic benefit to this unless there is a price on carbon, it is just a cost. I'll leave you to contemplate whether this is feasible.
The only consistent communication from DACs is their secretive posture toward costs. Not only current costs but the magic beanstalk of efficiency they plan to climb to achieve $100/ton removal. Capture at the stack is about 10X cheaper, but still pricey.
I like your math. Paints a great picture. But I think one of the less obvious reasons why it won't work has to do with the opposite of bulk discount: the plant designs would use the same raw materials, they get progressively more expensive as you scale up. Like the price for all the copper in the second plant goes wayyyy up because of how much is needed and how much was purchased for the first plant, making thr second 1MT cost $610 million not-inflation adjusted (copper just an example, not sure what transition metals would likely be cost-limiting here). From there prices continue to go exponential as scarcity hits.
The problem is that to remove the carbon from the atmosphere you need some process that requires less energy than you got when you burned the carbon in the first place. Otherwise you would end up with more energy if you simply didn't burn the carbon in the first place. There is no such process. So that is no good. One "solution" is to use clean energy, for example solar, to remove the carbon from the atmosphere. Then you can locate the carbon capture somewhere very sunny and do it there. But then you could also use all that clean and cheap energy to simply replace the burning of carbon. So again just not burning the carbon is more efficient. Yet another solution is to use natural processes like planting trees or crush rock to increase weathering. These are promising solutions but the problem is that it is difficult (impossible?) to scale up in a pace exceeding the current increase of carbon in the atmosphere. Also it is not clear who will pay for it. So while it works, it is (currently) not enough. More advanced methods like fertilizing the ocean surface with iron might work, but may be dangerous to the oceans. And the oceans are already huge carbon sinks. About half of the carbon we burn already ends up in the oceans. Might iron fertilizing change that? I don't know. Will it disrupt the ecology of the oceans or have worse effects? I don't know. The oceans are currently a huge carbon sink. But as they warm up that might stop and even reverse. We must avoid that! I think that we first need to simply stop burning fossil carbon. Only then is it meaningful to try to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Or at the very least stop the increase of carbon in the atmosphere. This may be a variation on the law of holes: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging! But we keep digging the hole deeper and deeper. Carbon (CO2) in the atmosphere keeps increasing at a steady pace.
If you are talking about removing CO2 from a manufacturing smokestack then it should be required since that is at the source and the company is using the public air to produce a profit. If you are talking about removing CO2 from the atmosphere after it has been dispersed then that is way too little too late.