To be clear: carbon capture like this is a tiny and expensive part of what needs doing over the next few years
It’s getting a lot of support and publicity in large part because it’s backed by the oil industry, which is trying to create social permission for continued extraction and burning on a much larger scale than the removal.
Spending the time and effort to directly reduce CO2 emissions would be a more efficient use of all resources. At the very least, capture it directly at the source instead of diluted to hell.
We have more than enough resources to do both, and small companies like this are the way we prove the concept to industries for future installations ‘at the source’. Until you prove that it is a net positive, it can’t be sold, and you can’t improve on something if you’ve never actually seen the system function. We will need these systems to properly fix the climate crisis, and the sooner we start putting them to use, the faster we can improve them to the point of being able to make a difference.
Again, I am not saying we should be doing this instead of renewable energy, just that we need to be doing both at the same time. Plenty of other companies and groups are working on wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, and other forms of renewable energy. We do need more companies presenting more ideas of how to clean the existing mess, otherwise we risk people thinking that we shouldn’t care about fixing the issue because ‘the damage is done’. That sentiment is becoming a very popular talking point among people trying to discourage climate solutions, and having examples like this showing that recovery is possible helps drive people to support faster and better solutions.
What do you mean… we have enough resources? We do not have spare energy to throw at this. We are far from a point in time where there is a regular excess in energy and where the low hanging fruits are taken care of.
We also do not have unlimited research capacities. Here too low hanging fruits are clearly more sensible to quickly reduce CO2 emissions.
The goal has to be the fastest possible reduction in CO2 emissions. This will not happen if we choose paths that are less efficient. Like hydrogen cars for example. Those or CCS are good for the fossil industry since they are ideal for greenwashing. This could even result in a net negative effect.