Carbon Capture -- The Good News (and the Bad) -- Informative

[ancianita]

[paleotn]

1. Ummmm.....no.

Globally, humans release 24 BILLION tons of CO2 per year according to the USGS. Granted, it's increasing every year, but lets use 24 billion tons. The low end of their current cost estimate is $94 per ton. They, we, someone would have to spend $2.3 TRILLION dollars just to remove this year's human CO2 emissions by artificial means. And remember, that's increasing every year as global economies grow. If they cut that cost estimate to 1/3 due to innovations and economies of scale....Oh, that's just $750 billion. If they do 25% capture, with the rest via biomass and ag reform, etc. (good luck with that) it will still cost $200 BILLION dollars every freaking year, without stopping because we won't reduce our burning. For reference, Walmart's 2018 global sales were $500 billion.

And that's just annual operating costs. That's not even taking into account the huge increase in emissions and the resources necessary to scale up carbon capture, much less the cost. That scale up would be factors of 10 beyond any infrastructure project ever devised by the minds of humans and would cost unimaginable amounts of up front capital. Who's going to pay for that? Bill Gates? Where's the return on investment? A cut of oil company profits? The value of the rich not losing their heads, literally, in a hotter, more dangerous world?

Artificial carbon capture is as much a pipe dream as "clean coal." More oil company green washing meant to keep the gravy flowing in the oil company gravy train. Unless we drastically reduce carbon emissions at the source, thus crushing oil company profits, we're in for one hot, bumpy ride. There's simply no way around it. We can't just keep burning and hope to technology our way out of this mess. Emissions are too vast and the costs too great.

[ancianita]

2. Some of what you say I agree with, especially the dirty relationship between billionaire investors

and Big Oil & Gas.

Carbon capture isn't a pipe dream since it's already being done, just not at the scale the globe needs it.

But climate change leaders have to start somewhere. Just not where fossil fuel operatives are.

Jay Inslee has spoken to this attempted "transitional takeover," by fossil and he's said that he's committed to ending it, with its fossil fuel subsidies for every damn thing from exploration to international negotiations to drilling to storage and delivery -- that's $5 TRILLION we spend each and every year. $5 TRILLION, along with the $2 TRILLION in tax subsidies to the 1%. Those savings, which the public will be glad to know about, fend off PR campaigns using "affordability" arguments. $7 TRILLION per year is a good budget start for any green new deal.

Yes, it's Congress' budget decision and the lobbyists will be fully occupying their offices. But with the right president as head of the party, that money can be returned to a green new deal budget. Big Oil & Gas can head out into the great beyond of the free market, and we'll see operations downsized. There'll be corporate-funded dramas, but a steady focus by a leader with climate change as his #1 priority can beat fossil.

If your argument is that it's not a silver bullet, that's not what anyone who's using it says. Yeah, fossils are partnering with that sellout Bill Gates, but they're not YET in a "first to market" position. And when a government steps -- soon, as it must -- in to budget climate change projects, they don't accept no-bid contracts with fossil fuel operatives behind them. That's what a climate change-focused president is for. Soon.

This isn't THE way out of climate heatup. Put in the right hands, it buys time -- only works when fossil fuel corps are ordered to phase their shutdown -- slows heat buildup while other projects like greening buildings to eliminate heat waste, manufacturing electric planes, cars, trucks, ships, get scaled up.

To flat out refuse a technology because it's got dirty investors isn't the way to deal with climate change mitigating technology. You mitigate the extractors, lobbyists, sell the plan. Inslee's got two -- domestic and an international.

[Crowman2009]

3. This will only work if it this technology is green powered.

And steps are put in place to drastically reduce fossil fuels and maybe place sanctions on Brazil as long as Pinochet 2.0 is in power.

[ancianita]

4. I don't understand about Brazil, or what they have to do with our efforts. Could you explain?

[Crowman2009]

5. Probably Bolsonaro's insistence on destroying what's left of the Amazon rain forest has something..

...to do with it.

[ancianita]

6. But what's Bolsonaro's leadership got to do with what we do? Are you suggesting alliances with

South Ameriican leaders? That makes sense. But the way you put it, I just didn't understand.

Killing 40 million trees, or carbon capturing more than 40 million trees ... is that the connection?

[Magoo48]

7. Trees work really well and are aesthetically pleasing.

[ancianita]

8. Humans can plant billions of trees, sure. If they'll work, fine. My guess, without comparing carbon

capture tech to trees, is that trees might not be enough.

Trees do so much more than carbon capture, so yes, there are added benefits.

I'll look into those numbers.