He says it makes no sense to do it, because not only are you basically using twice the energy to get it back down, often using energy made from fossil fuels to begin with, you then also have to tackle storage and that's nearly impossible at the scale we need to take it out of the atmosphere. Any use case, such as green houses and whatnot don't help, because they put the CO2 straight back into the atmosphere with a bit of a delay, same with trees.
Which makes it a futile exercise. It's basically gold plated HDMI cables. Sure it works, but it makes no sense whatsoever, because it doesn't do what it claims to do.
While it appears he actually has credentials related to this topic I would be way of promoting him in particular. Giving more light to someone who was so deeply entrenched in the gamergate harassment campaigns is not a good thing. I took a quick look around and while it seems like he's stepped away from that kind of commentary I haven't seen any acknowledgement of what he did.
What does “gamergate harassment” mean? He’s got an opinion channel and so, regardless of his credentials, one should not take his word (or anyone’s) as gospel. Opinion channels are exactly what they are for, opinions. He does do a good job though at basing his opinions on science facts and shares sources for the evidence he presents on his videos. Him and Evvblog channel are high up there with those pointing out the flase science claims and tech scammers of today, imo.
By "gamergate harassment" I mean the campaign of criticism and harassment that was primarily focused on several prominent women in the gaming/media industry from about 2014-2015. Thunderf00t was particularly focused on Anita Sarkeesian, making dozens of videos about her and bringing her up frequently in unrelated videos over the course of multiple years. He helped create a climate where people felt the need to threaten and doxx others because they were feminists and "SJWs".
I certainly agree with your view of opinion channels, take everything with a grain of salt unless it has a source. Even then, make sure the source is legitimate and not manipulated before assuming it is correct. I do not mean to say he is wrong about everything, just to apply some extra skepticism to his opinions and ideas. Particularly when it comes to stuff outside the scientific sphere.
hbomberguy made a good video about some of the stuff he closer to when it was happening. It is primarially focused on Thunderf00t's reactions to the Ghostbusters trailer, but it does go a bit into the gamergate stuff. It gives a good idea as to what kind of videos he made on gamergate. It's largely opinions though, so be sure to approach it critically as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpgBkpb7xlU
So Occidental Petroleum, a big American oil company, they are really good at a kind of oil production that involves injecting CO2 underground to squeeze more oil out of old wells. So when they heard about this technology to pull carbon out of the sky, they thought, wait; this could work for us. They plan to put some carbon underground just to store it.
This is worse than a zero sum game. Every litre of oil produces multiple litres of CO2 gas.
Doesn’t that mean that the oil produced here emits less net CO2? Since CO2 was used to extract it, taking it out of the atmosphere, that mean that the entire process of extraction and consumption emits less net CO2 than more traditional methods.
You don’t think it would just come back out the same hole they pulled the oil out of when they’re done? Or that the cavern they just created would collapse, releasing the gas at some point?
No, they can cap those off pretty well. Honestly, I think we need a way to start capturing CO2 and that’s a solid solution for holding a large amount of CO2.
Once our CO2 emissions finally come under control and we are not pumping out an insane amount, we will need to start finding ways to capture massive amounts of CO2 and holding them, or chemically changing the CO2 into liquids or solids.
If you’re going to capture any of it, you should build your capture factory right next to the source such as a blast furnace. In normal air the concentration is so low that you end up playing that game in hard mode.
This is the way I would want to see it happen. If pollution tax is high enough, it will incentivize companies to act more reasonably. Hopefully coal power plants will shut down permanently while blast furnaces will be modified to meet the new requirements. Processing all of that CO2 won’t be cheap, but steel production has to continue so the company doesn’t really have that many options. The government could also support the transition so that production won’t disappear into other countries.
This is just another attempt at greenwashing. They’re presenting carbon capture as a way to keep burning fossil fuels. Until our energy generation is fully decarbonised, there’s no point even thinking about carbon capture.
I mean, someone needs to be thinking about it and perhaps even building infrastructure so it can be used once the grid is clean but it’s not something that should be in use
They make the disease to sell you the cure that makes the disease.
It's just a ploy to make more money for big oiland gas. Then they don't have to invest in alternative technologies as that's expensive. All they have to do is invest in a tech that allows them to continue polluting as before and claim that they actually aren't polluting.
Good news everyone! It’s time to present my newest invention: a solar powered CO2 scrubber! To activate it, just throw a few of these small seeds on the ground and wait a few years.
Trees burn in wildfires, decompose and there isn’t infinite space for it. You need to take carbon out of the game to make a difference. Trees aren’t exactly perfect for that.
Old growth forests naturally sequester carbon despite bushfires. New growth takes a long time to get there without additional steps but the later you start the longer it’s going to take.
Nope thats not how it works its a circle of Carbon unless we humans add it by burning literal carbon we have from the ground (coal) we need to put it back.
Nope thats not how it works its a circle of Carbon unless we humans add it by burning literal carbon we have from the ground (coal) we need to put it back.
What is coal? It’s literally dead plant matter that didn’t decay in anaerobic environments and that’s what swamps are.
While I agree that artificial carbon capture should be researched, as others already said: it has little practical use until all electricity production comes from renewable sources.
There are better and more efficient ideas than Industrial Plants needing energy, for example a system using some sort of Alge, wich grows fast, and is easy to store forever when dry.
Wait, you’re making a big fuss over the type of natural photosynthesis we should use? Seriously?
People commenting against the carbon capture as featured in the article argue about using natural ways instead and “tree” is just a shorthand for some, just as I used the broad term “plants”.
Now don’t come and start splitting hairs like “But actually, algae are different from plants because the cells that comprise algae are not able to differentiate into different plant parts like stems, roots, and leaves, so I’m arguing for something completely different.”
Most plants aren’t suitable for permanent reduction of Carbon we would need way to much area, alge is however very efficient, some also want to use bacteria, but that may be risky.
And yes, trees are important, but not the best (or if we are honest, Meaningful) way to solve the carbon problem.
Another option would be to make lots of alcohol from plants and store it somewhere permanently. (ethanol is just a very compact carbohydrate)
And further there might be industrial ways to take out carbon on mass permanently, we are just not yet shure.
Anyway, the first priority should be to reduce released of more carbon into the atmosphere.
Fuck the naysayers: Any realistic long-term solution to this needs to include removing CO₂ that’s already in the atmosphere. The best time to start developing this tech would have been 50 years ago. If we don’t do this now, someone else will be saying the same thing 50 years from now.
Climate change doesn’t have a single-target solution. This tech may not be very impressive yet but it’s important we figure it out eventually.
Uh huh. They also decay and release their carbon back into the atmosphere.
Not if the dead wood gets into anaerobic environment such as sinking to the bottom of swamps. And I don’t know if you’ve heard of it but wood is also a great building material. So you can literally take the wood, build something and afterwards just not incarcerate it but instead store old wood in artificial anaerobic environments.
I’m not going to sit here pretending “We can sequester enough carbon from the atmosphere to make a difference globally by building with wood and sinking trees into swamps” is a good faith argument.
For sure it is, and I noted it as one of many steps that needs to be taken earlier in this comment chain. Not to mention that doing this is a no-brainer even without the context of climate change. The problem with relying on them as your only strategy for carbon sequestration is that once the forests are mature, they start being basically carbon neutral - we need to pull out way more than even full reforestation could ever hope to do.
Farming trees could even work for large scale long term carbon capture, if you do something like turn them into coal and re-fill and re-seal old mines with it in mass. I suspect we’ll be able to do much better with technological solutions though.
While I don’t disagree, I think it’s important to note that “our immediate priority needs to be stopping emissions” doesn’t mean “we shouldn’t be investing in this yet”. Technologies take time to develop and reach maturity - sometimes decades. If we wait on developing the tech until removing CO₂ that’s already out there out-prioritizes reducing ongoing emissions, then we’ll be multiple decades behind where we should be when it matters most.
I think this is necessary, but we need to stop trying to make it profitable or using it as an excuse to pollute more. This needs to be paid for through taxes. Any other source of money that is enough to actually get the job done will result in the carbon going right back into the air. Using it for extra oil extraction is doubly bullshit.
I both agree and disagree with this. If it can be made profitable, then all the better - because then economics and policy can combine to bring it about faster than either would alone. But if it can’t be made profitable then I agree absolutely that it should be done anyways with tax revenue.
Long-term it’s definitely not good to use it as an excuse to pollute more - these won’t do an ounce of good if they only exist to offset emissions we still produce. In the short term though, allowing carbon capture to act as an offset for emissions could still be a net long-term positive, in that it would shift the economics more in its favor - allowing faster development and a wider buildout. This assumes that the industries that use it in this fashion do eventually decarbonize anyways - which you could perhaps guarantee by having carbon capture stop counting as offsets at some designated future date.
I think the pragmatic solution is to introduce yearly shrinking carbon caps, and allow them to be offset with carbon capture for a limited time - say, 10 or 15 years after the “net zero carbon” goal date. After that it’s all about building up that net negative number.
Some people are saying it’s bad because they’re using it to “produce more oil” - and that I don’t buy. Sure, they’re directly pumping oil with the CO₂ they inject - but this is oil they’d extract either way, with or without direct air capture. In a strict comparison between the two situations, doing it with direct air capture is less bad than doing it without.
The actual harm that could come from it is mentioned in the article - that they want to use this to justify pumping for longer than they would otherwise. It was actually a bit shocking to see how brazen and open the oil company representative was about that. If they succeed in using this to justify continued pumping, then that’s definitely bad. I don’t think the politics will work out in their favor though, especially not 10 or 20 years from now.
But in the long-term I still see this as an absolute win. Above all else, what this technology needs to do is exist and be effective. For that it needs to be invested in heavily, and built and tested and run even when it’s ineffective and unprofitable. We aren’t anywhere near the stage where we have the technological capability to actually do direct air capture on a scale that matters globally. Helping us get to that point, to me, makes this move still a net positive. A pragmatic good.
Edit: I just read the article. Because it would justify continuing using oil as an energy source for longer. And one specific oil company could profit from both extracting carbon from the ground, and putting it back in.
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