Biden admin seeks to jumpstart carbon recycling with $100 million in grants

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NBC News

Carbon recycler Twelve makes a wide range of products using waste materials that would otherwise further warm Earth’s climate: Sunglasses, laundry detergent, car parts and even a sustainable aviation fuel it says reduces jet emissions by 90%.

That kind of fuel isn’t cheap. A gallon of sustainable aviation fuel costs almost twice as much as traditional aviation fuel, according to the International Air Transport Association. Carbon recycling technology is broadly expensive, limiting how widely these kinds of systems can be embraced, which can then limit their development and adoption.

The Biden administration took a step to address that chicken-and-egg problem Monday with the announcement of a $100 million grant program aimed at subsidizing carbon recycling purchases by state and local governments, as well as public utilities.

The initiative, spearheaded by the Energy Department, will fund a range of technologies and projects that recycle carbon waste, work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build a circular economy — an economic model based on manufacturing goods from things that have already been produced.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/biden-admin-seeks-jumpstart-carbon-recycling-100-million-grants-rcna96891

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. It bugs me that many reporters seem to think "carbon" and "carbon dioxide" are the same.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. We can't solve these sorts of physics problems with 'money' which is a notational 'thing'

in the first place. Meant to roughly represent 'the value of the resources we think we have'.

Which are collectively roughly 'jack shit' if you take 'fossil fuels' out of the equation.

You want to actually DO SOMETHING?

Tell the entire world to stop reproducing. Unless you want to watch your offspring die. Or, perhaps, eat you, with a nice Chianti.

Now.

Not bashing Biden or saying this isn't a 'positive step' but it's basically a band-aid on a slashed carotid artery.

Can y'all tell I'm not feeling especially hopeful about humanity this AM?

[Jillgirl]

4. Overpopulation is a main driver of our predicament.

I agree with you on that.

Another big driver is the lifestyle to which most (at least in the US) are accustomed. For example, we, even poor people, are expected to be able to drive where we need to go without worry about the cost of doing so, either to our wallets or to the environment. To do our part for the climate, we have to stop doing things that put carbon dioxide into the air.

A carbon recycling program may take some of the pain out of that. I understand the need for government subsidies to get these programs started, but I hope that eventually they will run on their own. There should be a law limiting carbon dioxide and methane emissions; once there is, technology to support compliance with that law should be worth paying for.

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

5. "To do our part for the climate, we have to stop doing things that put carbon dioxide into the air."

...but it needs to amount to something tangible, or else, it's just virtue signaling.

The math doesn't lie like statistics. Everyday US citizens will never have an impact to turn things around because the rest of the world (and the 1%) won't stop. Too many people, not enough energy to sustain it.

[Jillgirl]

6. What do you mean by "tangible"?

Do you mean enough to notice?

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the climate crisis is that so much of it is not noticeable -- until it is catastrophic. All the cars running on highways for decades did not make a noticeable difference in the climate, until they did. And good you can do as one person will not be perceptible, but done collectively it is the solution. How is that virtue signaling? If we all work together to stop dumping CO2 just the way we all have been dumping CO2, the difference will be real.

Of course there is enough energy to sustain a change, because without such a change we're doomed. This is becoming more and more clear, not just in the US but around the world.

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

7. Tangible as making a difference

You could have people throwing water off the titanic by the bucket-load. Sure, it's making a measurable contribution - that doesn't effect the outcome. If people were doing that, it was virtue signalling.

Locally, I would absolutely agree because it's easier to make an impact. The acid-rain issue in PA is a great example. CFCs with the ozone is another (because the source was highly concentrated and easily regulated). Solar panels on my house help reduce electric costs and local pollution at the power plant, but won't effect global climate.

Until the rest of the world emitting 85% of these gasses falls in line with their growing populations, nothing we individuals can do here in the US will stop the glacial melt (for example). China burns more dirty coal than the rests of the world combined. Not having a BBQ or driving less here will not offset that :/

[Jillgirl]

9. Any reduction in CO2 emissions makes a real difference.

A tiny reduction in emissions will make just a tiny difference in the climate, but if hundreds of millions of people make reductions that are each tiny on a global scale, that may help substantially.

If the US waits for the rest of the world before we start cutting CO2 emissions, and if the rest of the world waits for what is the rest of the world to them before they do anything, that is a formula for inaction, ensuring the worst outcome.

[hunter]

8. Let's be blunt. We have to ban fossil fuels. We have to practice birth control.

We have to quit eating factory farm meat and dairy products.

Etc.

Try running on that political platform.

How do we respond to these realities in positive ways?

For example, we know that the political and economic empowerment of women, realistic sex education, and readily available birth control options reduce birth rates significantly. How do we accomplish that? Who is arguing against that, and why?

I believe less than a third of the U.S.A. population (and probably the world population as well...) is "deplorable."

Why do they keep winning?

A large part of it is the disinformation machines they control, from their anti-intellectual religions to the mass media.

How do we fix that?

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

10. Being both here and Daily Kos

and being a (D) centrist myself, the Dems need to appeal to the mass of non-voting people and independents to get the majority across the board. Not to mention the republicans that don't like where the end-of-days Trump-ite cult is taking things.

Definitely not a popular stance on DK, but they're a more refined progressive platform too. The thing is, unless you appeal to the masses out there to get more people in rather than stand on political purity, the more the Rs are going to "win".

You'd be surprised at how many Rs like Biden's economic ideas, how accepting they are of LGBTQ, especially here, strong environmentalists, pro-choice for others (maybe not so for themselves). It's the loud religious nuts in the R party that take the stage, while others sit quietly trying to provide for their family. 33% of the Rs in W PA rejected that Jan 6, trump wanna be Mastriano even as deep red as the area is. As such, many Dems don't vote because they know they're in a deep red area and know they'll lose.

Just my 2 cents.

[Think. Again.]

3. Good....

Keep 'em coming Joe, we need every bit of positive momentum we can build.