China begins first of eight large-scale carbon capture projects

Capturing carbon is a valuable step, but only as part of a process that net removes it from the atmosphere. This project doesn't seem to have that goal.

> "China's new CCS project will remove CO2 from two coal gasification (syngas) plants and re-inject the gas into previously exhausted oil fields."

> "CCS "is an important set of technologies for reducing emissions from fossil fuel use, while enabling important resources such as coal to continue to contribute to energy security and economic objectives.""

They aren't net taking CO2 out of the atmosphere. They're using it to pump more oil out of the ground and using it to argue to burn more coal. The CO2 in the ground won't likely stay there forever but much of it will seep back into the atmosphere.

> "the world's first commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant opened in Zurich, Switzerland with the goal of selling compressed CO2 gas to industry, basically re-purposing the gas."

The Switzerland plant isn't taking CO2 out of the atmosphere either.

The article doesn't mention how much energy the plant uses to capture the carbon. If not powered by renewables, the process itself may not even be carbon neutral.

Let's hope others find ways to sequester the carbon, and maybe this step may help that process, but I don't see it offering much hope.

Meanwhile, almost no efforts put into changing people's behavior to reduce their emissions.

Almost no effort? I consider this inflamatory!

Half of the consumables today are virtual products - movies, software, services. A gaming youth living in his room with his parents lives a life, that previous generations would have seen fit to a monk. Shareeconomys boom, removing the empty car from the lanes, electric cars simplify and reduce the many parts once used to make a car. All this, and you call that nothing, and dream about reshaping the human- this damned old project that is as much a bug, as the bugs encountered when "reeducating, reshaping" humans. Go and buy two books "The Rise and Fall of Communism" and literally any comment on literally any democratic constitution and why it was built that way. And then put them on the end of two pistons and get them into your head.

Reshaping human behaviour is hard. Like really hard. Like they vote for Trump, if you only ramp down hard. And the problem is not only with the shapeshiftresistant, but also with the "We-should-Shift-Them"-Smurfs, who - very much resist not there tendency to go full totalitarian the moment the hardness of the task becomes obvious.

Sorry for this, but this comment is here in a thousand shapes and forms, day in and day out, and it rarely replaced with something worth reading after an attempt to educate.

> The CO2 in the ground won't likely stay there forever but much of it will seep back into the atmosphere.

That's really not the case. The injected CO2 is under such pressure that it stays liquid. We don't worry about massive oil seepage from kilometers underground, and studies have shown we don't have to worry about CO2 either: https://hub.globalccsinstitute.com/sites/default/files/publi...

E.g.: " The CO2 being injected should be in a “dense phase,” which means that it is put under pressure (compressed) until it turns from a gas into a kind of liquid. Because liquids take up much less space than gases, when large amounts of CO2 are injected, less space will be needed underground if the CO2 is in liquid form. It will mix more easily with water and other compounds, helping to secure the CO2 underground. The storage location must be deep enough in the earth that the pressures of the multiple layers of rock above the storage site keep the CO2 in this dense phase, to help it stay in the secure storage location, and not rise up like a gas. It is possible for CO2 to be injected as a gas, but the storage location would have to have a higher storage capacity since a gas takes up more space than a liquid. • Containment: A storage site must also have a layer of dense, impenetrable rock above it (called caprock) to stop any upward movement of CO2. There is often more than one such layer above the target storage formation that offers protection to keep the CO2 in the storage site. "

And: " The oil reservoirs studied in the WMP are about 1500 meters deep, which is deep enough so that the CO2 remains like a liquid. The reservoirs are made of limestone and a similar rock-type called dolostone. Both rocks contain lots of pore space where the oil has been trapped for millions of years. "

On one hand there is much concern and awareness about the environment and our carbon footprint. Businesses globally are under pressure to become greener. Individuals are trying to do their bit. There is activism and global concern.

On the other hand bitcoin and other crypto currencies continue to encourage millions to waste power for no useful reason beyond speculation without a care in the world, and without being called out on it. Can future designers of crypto currencies consider the waste of power?

A lot of concern begins to look self serving and mere finger pointing at others if whenever there is self interest and potential gain at stake all concerns go flying out, things are allowed to coast below the surface and hand waved away.

Are business that adopt crypto going to be boycotted for encouraging the needless waste of power?

Obviously not, but it will give them experience in building carbon-capturing devices. That's not nothing.