Are there any public companies actually working on this? The last time I looked it seemed like the answer was “Chevron, kinda”, but that doesn’t seem like the right spirit.
U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
61–70 of 347 posts
Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
#62> 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…
There are many biological and geological processes that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Many of which could be sped up.
Carbon removal need not involve mega facilities running co2 scrubbers.
Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
#63> 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…
There is a moral hazard here, but the reality is that we’ve passed the point where emissions reductions alone can get us where we want to be. We will need both reductions and removal.
Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
#64> 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…
It's more plausible to me when you think about centralization vs decentralization.
Sure, it would clearly be cheaper to emit less if the emissions were mostly coming from a small number of controlled facilities. But when the sources are millions of tailpipes and smokestacks across the globe, it's at least plausible that a centralized, new recapture solution would be cheaper than decreasing emissions in millions of old places.
Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
#65You can remove CO2 extremely cheaply using olivine today, this is a completely fake problem.
from wikipedia: "All the CO2 that is produced by burning one liter of oil can be sequestered by less than one liter of olivine." Doesn't that require a monstrous amount of olivine to obtain significant effects?
We burn monstrous amount of oil, Conservation of mass.
A liter of oil produces 3 kilos of CO2, density of rocks is 3-4 kilos per liter.
Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
#66> 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…
Removing CO₂ is far more doable, because you don't have to convince/force 7 billion people to do something.
Anyone with the right equipment can just do it, without asking permission, just like CO₂ emitters can.
Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
#67> 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…
It all comes down to the cost of energy. If the current improvements in renewable energy are sustained, or if the promise of fusion comes to pass, or even a considerable improvement in the economics of fission, then yes it could make sense to emit carbon dioxide now and recapture it later.
Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the default option through inaction.
Inaction is only the default option in totalitarian societies.
Uh, no? Business as usual scenarios are the default option (tautologically) and will lead to lots of dead bodies in the future. Anything else requires large-scale coordination to change course.
Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
#69Impose a tax on O&G industry, remove all of their subsidies, and earmark the collected tax towards CO2 removal and other climate change reversal methods. Could get to the $100 per tonne in a fraction of a time.
Re: U.S. sets goal to drive down cost of removing CO2 from atmosphere
#70> 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…
I tend to agree, at least from the point of view that even if we continue to burn fossil fuels that it would be much cheaper to require CO2 removal where it is produced, and thus in extremely high concentrations, than trying to waft it out of the atmosphere where it's only 400 ppm.
Electrification of transportation would also make this much easier, because instead of having billions of little fossil fuel burners all over the planet, you could concentrate that burning to just power plants. At that point there would be a lot fewer places where it would be difficult to sequester carbon (e.g. planes, large ocean vessels).