11–20 of 221 posts
Preventing emissions: Renewable electricity. EVs. Hydrogen. Synthetic food stuffs. Etc
Handling the last 5%-10%: tax carbon, and allow nature to recover (rain forests, fisheries, natural bio-mass, etc).
The idea of carbon capture while some developing country is cutting down forests is bizarre. Luckily population is stabilizing, and the world is getting richer and urbanized.
It would also be uneconomical and therefore pointless. You might as well pay people to not work. Hey isn't that exactly the appeal of MMT? People could do nothing, emit less CO2 and still get paid.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another thing is where will all that energy required to break down CO2 come from. It's so bizarre that you hear so little about that, almost like nobody can do simple accounting on Joules: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
Binding carbon from CO2 does not necessarily cost energy. The reactions CaO -> CaCO3 is exothermic, and the same is true for the equivalent reaction for magnesium, and the reactions forming carbonates from the silicates of those metals. Eroding volcanic rock naturally pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere, as erosion slowly reveals metals that were reduced by the volcanic heat. This process is naturally quite slow, but it…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another thing is where will all that energy required to break down CO2 come from. It's so bizarre that you hear so little about that, almost like nobody can do simple accounting on Joules: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
Binding carbon from CO2 does not necessarily cost energy. The reactions CaO -> CaCO3 is exothermic, and the same is true for the equivalent reaction for magnesium, and the reactions forming carbonates from the silicates of those metals. Eroding volcanic rock naturally pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere, as erosion slowly reveals metals that were reduced by the volcanic heat. This process is naturally quite slow, but it…
How would you like to create CaO without providing energy if the reverse reaction is exothermic?
Or am I missing the fact that there's a lot of unbound CaO in rocks?
Also, production of cement is one of the major sources of CO2 emissions.
My intuition is that it would be almost always cheaper to pay e.g. Norway and Saudi Arabia to not pump out the captured carbon (in form of fossilized plant matter) in the first place, instead of pumping it out in the form of oil, burning it, then capturing the CO2, liquifying it and finally pumping it back underground where hopefully it doesn't bubble up again. But that would be the problem a world-wide carbon emissi…
I mean it actually isn’t that simple. In a market with significant inelasticity in demand you’d certainly see the price rise if they pressed the stop button, but the decline in consumption in the short term wouldn’t be as severe. As long as there’s other places to get the product the market would adjust to meet that demand. Granted in the long term higher prices would help a lot, but a tax at the point of demand/cons…
1. It makes extracting and burning oil not so bad - no need to make rules limiting oil extraction, we can simply start some CCS projects.
2. Injecting CO2 into deep oil wells actually helps get more oil out of them. Get the government to pay for CCS, while the oil company profits off increased yields.
It's worth pointing out the "omg" math moment in this paper. According to various mitigation scenarios modelled, the amount of CCS required (in addition to other mitigating approaches) requires the construction of an "average typical" CCS facility at a rate of between one a week, and one a day, until 2050. I'm not sure how to describe how this makes me feel, other than "ill".
We can and should built about x2-x3 more. Current bottlenecks is NIMBY, competing fossil assets, and transmission.
It will be hard, so feel "ill but hopeful".
My intuition is that it would be almost always cheaper to pay e.g. Norway and Saudi Arabia to not pump out the captured carbon (in form of fossilized plant matter) in the first place, instead of pumping it out in the form of oil, burning it, then capturing the CO2, liquifying it and finally pumping it back underground where hopefully it doesn't bubble up again. But that would be the problem a world-wide carbon emissi…
People are missing the fact that the oil and gas industry is strongly in favour of CCS for 2 main reasons: 1. It makes extracting and burning oil not so bad - no need to make rules limiting oil extraction, we can simply start some CCS projects. 2. Injecting CO2 into deep oil wells actually helps get more oil out of them. Get the government to pay for CCS, while the oil company profits off increased yields.
I think people advocating for CCS should be careful what they ask for. Reasonable things to do would be:
a) CCS should be confined to areas where no feasible technical alternative exists (e.g. cement) and to negative emissions.
b) No support for CCS as in Enhanced Oil Recovery. This is creating more emissions than it avoids.
My intuition is that it would be almost always cheaper to pay e.g. Norway and Saudi Arabia to not pump out the captured carbon (in form of fossilized plant matter) in the first place, instead of pumping it out in the form of oil, burning it, then capturing the CO2, liquifying it and finally pumping it back underground where hopefully it doesn't bubble up again. But that would be the problem a world-wide carbon emissi…
I mean it actually isn’t that simple. In a market with significant inelasticity in demand you’d certainly see the price rise if they pressed the stop button, but the decline in consumption in the short term wouldn’t be as severe. As long as there’s other places to get the product the market would adjust to meet that demand. Granted in the long term higher prices would help a lot, but a tax at the point of demand/cons…