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U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#51

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dane-pgp wrote: post #2

> The Department of Energy's Carbon Negative Earthshot seeks to slash the cost of carbon removal to $100 a tonne by the end of the decade At 40 gigatonnes a year, that would be $4 trillion, which is about 5% of Gross World Product.[0] It's probably still cheaper to avoid emitting the CO2 in the first place, but that does put an upper bound on the cost of reaching net zero. Of course, no one wants to take a voluntary…

> It's probably still cheaper to avoid emitting the CO2 in the first place, but that does put an upper bound on the cost of reaching net zero.

It seems hard to believe that removing CO2 from the atmosphere could ever be less expensive than not emitting it to begin with. You're working against thermodynamics.

So the whole thing seems like a fraud. An excuse to keep emitting CO2 while claiming that you'll do something about it "tomorrow."

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#53

Post by chippiewill »

mvanaltvorst wrote: post #16
dane-pgp wrote: post #2

> The Department of Energy's Carbon Negative Earthshot seeks to slash the cost of carbon removal to $100 a tonne by the end of the decade At 40 gigatonnes a year, that would be $4 trillion, which is about 5% of Gross World Product.[0] It's probably still cheaper to avoid emitting the CO2 in the first place, but that does put an upper bound on the cost of reaching net zero. Of course, no one wants to take a voluntary…

This sounds great, but how likely is it that the US will manage to reach 100$/GT?

Early estimates were at $600/ton, getting under $100/ton doesn't sound completely implausible.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#54

Post by spywaregorilla »

aunty_helen wrote: post #18
jandrese wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, having an actual price tag on removing carbon from the atmosphere would allow carbon markets to finally work. Assuming there is enough political will to properly monitor and tax CO2 emissions worldwide, which is a huge ask. A lot of companies and countries will be tempted to lie because it will make their products more competitive.

Cant we see this from space? Estimate the amount of co2 coming from each country that way and send them a bill every year. My first thought was “that’s where auditing and bureaucracy come in” but maybe satellites are a better way

Is "we" the united states sending a bill to other countries?

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#55

Post by ClumsyPilot »

cletus wrote: post #36

I've said this repeatedly here: the world won't address climate change even if it's mildly inconvenient to do so, let alone the massive endeavours that have been proposed thus far. The solution will be economic. Want to replace fossil fuels with cleaner energy sources? It won't happen until those alternatives are cheaper. When energy is sufficiently cheap or the byproducts are sufficiently valuable, that's when carbo…

"Want to replace fossil fuels with cleaner energy sources? It won't happen until those alternatives are cheaper"

We are going to go extinct with that attitude - the laws on nature do not owe us a cheaper method of producing energy.

The Moneyed classes have never given up anything willingly: the end of monarchy, the end of slavery and even labour laws were won in blood.

Its likely to be the same with climate change

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#59

Post by diego »

dane-pgp wrote: post #2

> The Department of Energy's Carbon Negative Earthshot seeks to slash the cost of carbon removal to $100 a tonne by the end of the decade At 40 gigatonnes a year, that would be $4 trillion, which is about 5% of Gross World Product.[0] It's probably still cheaper to avoid emitting the CO2 in the first place, but that does put an upper bound on the cost of reaching net zero. Of course, no one wants to take a voluntary…

They are different problems. You can stop filling the tub, but the water in the tub isn't going to evaporate in time. You still have to drain it. It's not either/or.

Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere

#60

Post by BurningFrog »

dane-pgp wrote: post #2

> The Department of Energy's Carbon Negative Earthshot seeks to slash the cost of carbon removal to $100 a tonne by the end of the decade At 40 gigatonnes a year, that would be $4 trillion, which is about 5% of Gross World Product.[0] It's probably still cheaper to avoid emitting the CO2 in the first place, but that does put an upper bound on the cost of reaching net zero. Of course, no one wants to take a voluntary…

You still have the problem that this is a textbook Public Good¹, and a textbook Collective Action Problem².

As in, if someone pays $1B to decarbonize, the entire world benefits from it. So everyone is incentivised to make someone else pay for it.

Empirically, things like these tend to be very underfunded.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics) ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem

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