“Direct air capture is expensive, unproven, and will ultimately make almost no difference in reducing climate pollution… Capturing just a quarter of our annual carbon emissions would require all of the power currently generated in the country.”
It’s completely stupid, especially when carbon itself is untaxed. You’re spending $1B to suck something out of a vast and difficult medium that’s getting chucked up there willy nilly by anyone who wants to? Why not spend the money putting systems in place to block its initial exhaust? It would be far more cost effective.
I can’t say I’m a fan of the current generation of this technology, and I’m not really excited about the idea that we can just use it as an excuse to not change our behaviors.
However: This kind of investment is how we get better versions of the technology, or learn that it truly is a dead-end.
Maybe this won’t result in like, amazing faux-trees capturing and sequestering carbon into bricks we turn into buildings or something, but maybe it will result in technology we can miniaturize or repurpose to slap on the ends of tailpipes and the tops of smokestacks. Maybe it’ll end up being a stepping stone to something greater.
We’re at the point now where we can’t afford to let the perfect be the enemy of good. We need to try everything, even if it’s not perfect right now.
My sentiments exactly. Plus, carbon capture as a concept (in this form or others) is a desireable and perhaps even necessary avenue of exploration considering where the climate currently is.
We’re already at the point of no return - each year tens of millions more acres are burning than is normal. Arctic ice is melting. Both of these are self-feeding cycles. Even if humanity were to vanish and/or our carbon emissions dropped to 0, we’re already at the point of these kinds of extremes. If we want any chance of returning to a climate humans have been largely familiar with over the course of written history, we have to start eliminating the carbon already in the atmosphere, whether by technology or by biological systems that WON’T burn down in the next drought. The Atlantic oceanic current system is estimated to collapse within a couple of decades, which will have massive ramifications for the ocean ecosystems as well as climate for the northern hemishpere, so it’d be just peachy if we could figure this all out before then.
We got tax credits for green energy and green initiatives in other legislation. What’s wrong with trying this too. Ya think the first computer or car or airplane was a home run?
I think it’s slightly more hot-button because oil companies think that if this is feasible, it will let them keep fucking us over. As long as legislation and cultural/economic trends continue to shy away from those guys, I think it’s a fine idea to give it a shot.
The unproven technology has been a key focus of oil and gas lobbyists, who argue that fossil fuel companies can continue their planet-heating extraction activities if plants are built to remove the pollution they cause.
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