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how carbon removal technology is like a time machine. They are both pipe dreams and distract from real helpful actions.
We will likely need both carbon reduction and sequestration to actually be effective in reducing carbon emissions in general. Here’s an article that touches on that and as well as goes over concerns about relying too much on carbon dioxide removal.
I get that carbon collection on industry exhausts are necessary and a must have for a lot of products (like steel). But other than that this is silly. Plant trees and use them to build stuff, plant new trees after that. Rinse, repeat.
I think we need to go a step further. The article I linked earlier touches on how several natural carbon sequestration systems rerelease carbon seasonally or have other implications. Seagrasses release carbon when water is warmer than usual. Trees release carbon during forest fires or from natural decomposition, and even potentially cause local atmospheric warming due to a low reflectivity. Artificial methods of sequestration are necessary, whether as systems that directly capture atmospheric carbon and store it or as systems that interrupt the process of natural decomposition or combustion and divert it to storage or further processing.
Except:
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Failed/underperforming projects considerably outnumbered successful experiences.
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Successful CCUS exceptions mainly existed in the natural gas processing sector serving the fossil fuel industry, leading to further emissions.
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Captured carbon has mostly been used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR): enhancing oil production is not a climate solution.
https://ieefa.org/resources/carbon-capture-crux-lessons-learned
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Yeah the thing is that the sequestration takes more energy that we got before when we put it in. So I can see that we need it but its not effective until we essentially have carbon free energy serving all our needs and it would use the spare energy we don’t need. Until then we have to cover more and more of what we are using today with carbon free or (much better) reduce what we use.
That’s a fair concern. I hope that becomes less of an issue as we incorporate more sustainable energy but unfortunately it seems that coal and gas lobbyists don’t want to give up without a fight.
Hey! Stop it with the attitude. You’re distracting the consumers from consuming.
If the world is emitting just under 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in a year, how far back in time could this year’s total carbon removal take us? Right now, the answer is somewhere around 10 seconds.
That really puts it in perspective…
I wonder how that compares with planting trees or other plants that absorb co2…
