10 ms·

Remember that, a priori, you should be far more skeptical of studies with this sort of result than, say, studies showing that neocortinoids don't harm bees or t

Remember that, a priori, you should be far more skeptical of studies with this sort of result than, say, studies showing that neocortinoids don't harm bees or that the latest blockbuster pharmaceutical has no side effects. The sheer mass of money in position to lobby for the "fossil fuel use is fine!" position dwarfs that of all other financially-fraught research questions put together. To wit; the company behind the paper in question, Carbon Engineering, is noted by Wikipedia as having "oil sands financier N. Murray Edwards" as one of it's principal backers. And the article's "outside expert's opinion" quote comes from Stephen Pacal, co-director of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton- which has an "extended partnership with BP" worth a great deal of money [1]. The financial conflicts behind this research are staggering. [1] https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/11/18/carbon-mitigation-initiative-receives-11-million-through-extended-partnership-bp https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/11/18/carbon-mitigation-...

zzzeek 8y ago
this is kind of interesting as there's some reverse/upside down ideas that come out of it: 1. the big oil companies and the massive political machine that supports them drops the whole "global warming isn't real" line, no more snowballs being taken in to congress and all that. Because now they can just say they'll suck it out of the air and they can continue to think they can keep burning all the coal and oil they want (which of course they should not). Once everyone is on the same page that global warming is real, they can't go back on that. If the approach here proves to be insufficient (which it probably is), a lot of political points have been scored in any case. 2. the machinery to suck out the CO2 is another big "green" industry, like solar or wind, but doesn't compete with oil/coal! it's meant to mitigate the damage they do. So as you've noted, way more money and attention might end up going here, increasing the chance of its viability. 3. No matter what happens with the rate of burning oil/coal, we need this anyway. There's consensus that we're pretty much over the point of no return with warming due to all the ice that has melted, and if the permafrost goes that might be catastrophic.
- briandear 8y ago
  Is anyone actually debating if climate change is happening? The debate is on the degree of human influence.
  - kasey_junk 8y ago
    Now. 5 years ago it was if it is even happening
  - epistasis 8y ago
    Of course they are, including nearly half of US politicians. There are people in this thread that are unsure if humans are even increasing CO2 levels. This is a political debate, not a scientific debate. And the political debates mean stating the most extreme position that's within the realm of plausibility. Or having others say even more extreme things to move the window of plausibility.
    - tnzn 8y ago
      It's hard making some people understand that such debates go beyond the scope of science (or that there's anything beyond the score of science for that matter) :/
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Even better: there are politicians(0) and 'leaders'(1) in the US who still outright deny that it (climate change) is a thing. One of them is even head of the EPA. lol. 0. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/19/trumps-energy-secretary-just-denied-that-man-made-carbon-dioxide-is-the-main-driver-for-climate-change/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20... 1. https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/trump-on-climate-change/ https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/trump-on-climate-change/
    - Zanni 8y ago
      Maybe I'm missing something, but can you point to a line in [1] where Trump outright denies climate change is a thing? I see a lot of qualified statements like "climate change is a 'very complex subject'" and "Trump said there is 'some connectivity.'"
anfedorov 8y ago
Noting conflicts of interests makes sense, but the point of the article may still stand. Why is there no market force for extracting CO2? Do any emissions trading systems include folks who capture emissions and improve the "supply side" of the equation?
- thinkcontext 8y ago
  The US gives tax credits of $50/ton for underground storage and $30/ton for usage of the CO2.
  - vkou 8y ago
    So, about 5 cents per gallon of gas? That is a complete joke.
    - tlb 8y ago
      Coal prices vary, but can be as low as $50/ton. If you set the price for carbon burial much higher than that, it enables a business model you might not want to encourage.
      - gomox 8y ago
        You mean burning coal and capturing carbon back to profit from the price spread?
        voidmain 8y ago
        I think they mean digging up coal and burying it in the ground again. Carbon captured, mission accomplished!
        cobbzilla 8y ago
        The current spot price for a short ton of coal is $40 [1], if it stays this low for a while, and the subsidy is in fact above that price, then watch out for some "business model innovation" in this space. [1] http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/coal/5-year/ http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/coal/5-year/
briandear 8y ago
Doesn’t the anti-fossil fuel crowd have similar incentives? Shouldn’t all studies be held with skepticism? If the results were the opposite, people with ideological intent would be trumpeting this study as further confirmation of their own bias. Basically it sounds like you are saying, “be skeptical of anything that goes against my deeply held beliefs because my cause is just while the other side is evil.” Selective skepticism is a bad way to do science. Scientists should be skeptical of everything that doesn’t have repeatable experimental evidence. Am I understanding your point correctly?
- maxander 8y ago
  No. The anti-fossil-fuel movement, in general, doesn’t have tens of billions of dollars at their disposal. Deeply held beliefs may certainly influence scientific research, and that should be guarded against, but by itself it doesn’t let you buy scientists wholesale.
  - philipkglass 8y ago
    The diehard AGW "skeptic" needs just two simple maneuvers to counter any high-profile messenger warning about climate risks: 1) If the messenger has not invested their own money into efforts to reduce emissions, say "they won't put their money where their mouth is." 2) If the messenger has invested their own money into efforts to reduce emissions, say "they're just scaring people about climate to profit from their investments."
    - chrisws 8y ago
      It's funny how people are still having these conversations on the eve of the bicentenary of climate science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fourier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fourier
- codefined 8y ago
  I feel the controversy comes from the fact that one side has a large fund of money and is biased towards keeping things the way it is, whilst the other has significantly less funding and does not earn any money, or likely even significant benefits from the other side (mostly the young and poor will be affected, neither of which hold as much political clout). All studies should be held with skepticism, but (assuming skepticism is a "resource" that can be exhausted), we should likely focus more of our skepticism on studies that clearly benefit from the result of the topic being discussed.
gnicholas 8y ago
Are there other experts without conflicts of interest who have offered critical assessments of this research? I agree that lay readers should be skeptical of experts with a vested interest in an outcome. But that doesn't mean we should be unduly pessimistic about research that has only positive evaluations (and is in Nature) as of yet — even if all of the experts who've weighed in have financial or other relationships on one side of the issue.
philwelch 8y ago
An alternative motive, which makes slightly more sense to me, is that oil and gas companies have a vested interest in developing this kind of technology because that's the only way their business will survive in the long run. Fooling people (including the editors of peer-reviewed scientific journals) with spurious research into CO2 recapture methods seems about as hard, and still not as effective, as actually developing those methods. Plus, if they successfully develop the technology, they get to run two complementary businesses instead of just one, kind of like owning a bar with a pay toilet.
- wpietri 8y ago
  I think that the much cheaper solution is neither to develop the technology nor fool people with fake research, but fund real research into areas where the economics probably won't work. (Which could be the whole field.) As we've seen with Theranos, and with plenty of smaller companies [1], it's easy enough to spend years taking investor money for things people want to exist but are probably or definitely impossible. That would get carbon polluters many years of delay. For corporate execs, that's plenty of time. And hey, a miracle might happen. That said, fooling people is a well-established business of its own. It started with the tobacco companies, but it sure hasn't ended there. [2] So they might be sticking with the tried and true playbook here. [1] E.g., this excellent blog on wireless charging companies: https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/ https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/ [2] https://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Their-Product-Industrys-Threatens/dp/019530067X https://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Their-Product-Industrys-Threate...
slavik81 8y ago
I would expect the opposite. If carbon sequestration is cheap, then it's not a big deal to demand that businesses purchase offsets to be carbon neutral. But, I'm still skeptical because these sorts of breakthroughs are always overhyped. If it's real, the proof is in the pudding.
chrisweekly 8y ago
I hear you, and in terms of the merits of this particular study I'm sure your skepticism is well-grounded; I share it. But, it's also worth considering the perspective of the "Big Oil" executives. Thought experiment: imagine you're such an exec, and you recognize that the future of your company (in fact, your whole industry), depends on evolving beyond oil, to become an _energy_ company, embracing (and innovating in, and profiting from) renewable sources. What do you do? How do you start? I am NOT repeat NOT an apologist for the selfish idiot criminals (insert unprintables here) who effectively destroy the planet for personal gain. And yes the fossil fuel industry as a whole has a horrible and well-deserved reputation. But some of these entities are going to adapt and change, and for better or worse they're going to play a role in how our species relates to the planet. So I think it's really important to remain skeptical, but without ruling out, out of hand, the possibility that ties to the energy industry are not an automatic disqualifier for real science and progress.
- Retric 8y ago
  It's a question of scale, the oil industry is vast. Exxon has ~1/4 of a trillion dollars per year in revenue while profits swing they tend to be very good over time. Renewables on the other hand are fractured. Do they go for Wind, Solar, Batteries, Bio fuels, or what? It's not that hard to keep Exxon alive through this transition, but you also need to keep it huge and profitable which is very tricky. IMO, they might be better off going into chemistry or engineering because being an energy company sounds fine there is little connection between renewables and oil. But again how do you keep that kind of scale?
  - linkregister 8y ago
    This is indeed part of Exxon's publicly-stated strategy; they recognize that the demand for oil will peak once renewables, distribution, and storage technology are cheaper than the cost of extraction. There are already several solar power plants that were built because the unit economics made sense in those rare, outlier situations. This will become more widespread.
ggg9990 8y ago
Not really. The influence:price ratio of academia is very high -- they can be bought very cheaply. It doesn't really take much to fund a study compared to the earnings of a big corporation. Tesla or similar could easily fund anti-fossil fuel studies and categorize them just as miscellaneous marketing expenses.
cup-of-tea 8y ago
> The sheer mass of money in position to lobby for the "fossil fuel use is fine!" position dwarfs that of all other financially-fraught research questions put together. Not only that but a very large number of people want to believe results like this are true. People are really scared to downgrade their lives and will resist at any cost. Clinging to delusional beliefs is one of the oldest tricks in the book.
zamalek 8y ago
> The sheer mass of money in position to lobby for the "fossil fuel use is fine!" I wish them all the best. At the end of the day Shell has come forward and indicated that renewable energy is best, despite their namesake. I'd own an EV if I could, but I can't: the next best is a hybrid. The two times I fill up a month I actively seek out Shell because of their stance. There are PR implications. Imagine a world where fossil fuels are fine (not fossil really, but carbon). I have great and frankly revolutionary ideas surrounding easy and fast EV refills, but they are simply horrific in the face of turning electricity from renewables and atmospheric carbon into fuel. My physics Spidey senses are tingling and this sounds too good to be true, but if it isn't: god speed.
BurningFrog 8y ago
Meh. Anyone with serious expertise in an area will have "ties" to the relevant industry. If people with such ties are untrustworthy, that means no experts can be trusted, and all you're left with is the uninformed and various angry activists. I'll take my chances with well informed experts who are possibly not perfectly impartial.
- babygoat 8y ago
  Meh. You’ll only take your chances with someone who absolutely has conflicts of interest is what you’re really saying.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    No, what they're saying is that conflicts of interest are so common and mundane that they don't have much signal on their own.
- maxander 8y ago
  When corporate grants are bringing research groups into existence more or less from scratch, it's fair to call it more than "ties." At the very least, this is far beyond the norm in fields I keep track of- for instance, pharmaceutical companies helping fund academic biomedical research happens, certainly, but only in limited cases and generally it's considered a significant asterisk next to whatever the study finds. When those same companies are carrying out their own research (say, clinical trials for a new drug) they typically do so under external supervision, with rigorous reporting standards. For that matter, the choice isn't between oil-industry experts and complete novices. Carbon capture is chemistry; there are plenty of chemical engineers with independently-funded academic positions, or involved in non-oil-industry funded companies. If some of them published a review of the plausibility of carbon capture, I'd listen to it.
  - SubiculumCode 8y ago
    But there is no advantage here to produce FUD. In fact it acknowledges the primary problems of fossil fuels, not deny them. They are not seeking FDA approval on a drug, or trying to show that CO2 makes us smarter and healthier. I won't use more gas now because of this article. However, if they can do it (and they have for several years in a test), then we can slow the rate of new carbon, while the growth of solar continues to grow, I think it is a potential win for us, and for a company able to do it.
rorykoehler 8y ago
Doesn't change anything. I still would take the method that produces no air pollutants as my number one choice. I also care about localised pollution from cars etc and not only climate change.
pif 8y ago
> The sheer mass of money in position to lobby for the "fossil fuel use is fine!"... Please, let me play the role of the devil's advocate for a moment: fossil fuel use is fine! It MUST be fine! Fossil fuel gives people cheap energy that used to come from muscles (human and animal) and, in particular, comfortable ways to move around, where you want, when you want. People switched to fossil fuel as soon as possible because life got immediately enormously more joyful. Global warming is two more Celsius degrees for average atmosphere temperature. Give me two degrees less each day and I'll give you back my car... just to ask it back the following day, and maybe I'll propose you to give a couple more degrees each day in exchange for no more whining about good old days' cars (nowadays labelled as "polluting" cars).
null000 8y ago
Really? I view this research as opening the way for laws mandating oil/gasoline producers reach carbon neutrality by funding/implementing mass carbon extraction as part of the cost of drilling. Sure, they'll still be doing massive ecological harm with oil spills, disruptive drilling, fracking-related earthquakes/water reservoir contamination, and so on, but at least we won't bake ourselves to death, there's that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

zzzeek 8y ago

this is kind of interesting as there's some reverse/upside down ideas that come out of it: 1. the big oil companies and the massive political machine that supports them drops the whole "global warming isn't real" line, no more snowballs being taken in to congress and all that. Because now they can just say they'll suck it out of the air and they can continue to think they can keep burning all the coal and oil they want (which of course they should not). Once everyone is on the same page that global warming is real, they can't go back on that. If the approach here proves to be insufficient (which it probably is), a lot of political points have been scored in any case. 2. the machinery to suck out the CO2 is another big "green" industry, like solar or wind, but doesn't compete with oil/coal! it's meant to mitigate the damage they do. So as you've noted, way more money and attention might end up going here, increasing the chance of its viability. 3. No matter what happens with the rate of burning oil/coal, we need this anyway. There's consensus that we're pretty much over the point of no return with warming due to all the ice that has melted, and if the permafrost goes that might be catastrophic.

briandear 8y ago
Is anyone actually debating if climate change is happening? The debate is on the degree of human influence.
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  Now. 5 years ago it was if it is even happening
- epistasis 8y ago
  Of course they are, including nearly half of US politicians. There are people in this thread that are unsure if humans are even increasing CO2 levels. This is a political debate, not a scientific debate. And the political debates mean stating the most extreme position that's within the realm of plausibility. Or having others say even more extreme things to move the window of plausibility.
  - tnzn 8y ago
    It's hard making some people understand that such debates go beyond the scope of science (or that there's anything beyond the score of science for that matter) :/
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Even better: there are politicians(0) and 'leaders'(1) in the US who still outright deny that it (climate change) is a thing. One of them is even head of the EPA. lol. 0. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/19/trumps-energy-secretary-just-denied-that-man-made-carbon-dioxide-is-the-main-driver-for-climate-change/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20... 1. https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/trump-on-climate-change/ https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/trump-on-climate-change/
  - Zanni 8y ago
    Maybe I'm missing something, but can you point to a line in [1] where Trump outright denies climate change is a thing? I see a lot of qualified statements like "climate change is a 'very complex subject'" and "Trump said there is 'some connectivity.'"

anfedorov 8y ago

Noting conflicts of interests makes sense, but the point of the article may still stand. Why is there no market force for extracting CO2? Do any emissions trading systems include folks who capture emissions and improve the "supply side" of the equation?

thinkcontext 8y ago
The US gives tax credits of $50/ton for underground storage and $30/ton for usage of the CO2.
- vkou 8y ago
  So, about 5 cents per gallon of gas? That is a complete joke.
  - tlb 8y ago
    Coal prices vary, but can be as low as $50/ton. If you set the price for carbon burial much higher than that, it enables a business model you might not want to encourage.
    - gomox 8y ago
      You mean burning coal and capturing carbon back to profit from the price spread?
      - voidmain 8y ago
        I think they mean digging up coal and burying it in the ground again. Carbon captured, mission accomplished!
        cobbzilla 8y ago
        The current spot price for a short ton of coal is $40 [1], if it stays this low for a while, and the subsidy is in fact above that price, then watch out for some "business model innovation" in this space. [1] http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/coal/5-year/ http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/coal/5-year/

briandear 8y ago

Doesn’t the anti-fossil fuel crowd have similar incentives? Shouldn’t all studies be held with skepticism? If the results were the opposite, people with ideological intent would be trumpeting this study as further confirmation of their own bias. Basically it sounds like you are saying, “be skeptical of anything that goes against my deeply held beliefs because my cause is just while the other side is evil.” Selective skepticism is a bad way to do science. Scientists should be skeptical of everything that doesn’t have repeatable experimental evidence. Am I understanding your point correctly?

maxander 8y ago
No. The anti-fossil-fuel movement, in general, doesn’t have tens of billions of dollars at their disposal. Deeply held beliefs may certainly influence scientific research, and that should be guarded against, but by itself it doesn’t let you buy scientists wholesale.
- philipkglass 8y ago
  The diehard AGW "skeptic" needs just two simple maneuvers to counter any high-profile messenger warning about climate risks: 1) If the messenger has not invested their own money into efforts to reduce emissions, say "they won't put their money where their mouth is." 2) If the messenger has invested their own money into efforts to reduce emissions, say "they're just scaring people about climate to profit from their investments."
  - chrisws 8y ago
    It's funny how people are still having these conversations on the eve of the bicentenary of climate science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fourier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fourier
codefined 8y ago
I feel the controversy comes from the fact that one side has a large fund of money and is biased towards keeping things the way it is, whilst the other has significantly less funding and does not earn any money, or likely even significant benefits from the other side (mostly the young and poor will be affected, neither of which hold as much political clout). All studies should be held with skepticism, but (assuming skepticism is a "resource" that can be exhausted), we should likely focus more of our skepticism on studies that clearly benefit from the result of the topic being discussed.

gnicholas 8y ago

Are there other experts without conflicts of interest who have offered critical assessments of this research? I agree that lay readers should be skeptical of experts with a vested interest in an outcome. But that doesn't mean we should be unduly pessimistic about research that has only positive evaluations (and is in Nature) as of yet — even if all of the experts who've weighed in have financial or other relationships on one side of the issue.

philwelch 8y ago

An alternative motive, which makes slightly more sense to me, is that oil and gas companies have a vested interest in developing this kind of technology because that's the only way their business will survive in the long run. Fooling people (including the editors of peer-reviewed scientific journals) with spurious research into CO2 recapture methods seems about as hard, and still not as effective, as actually developing those methods. Plus, if they successfully develop the technology, they get to run two complementary businesses instead of just one, kind of like owning a bar with a pay toilet.

wpietri 8y ago
I think that the much cheaper solution is neither to develop the technology nor fool people with fake research, but fund real research into areas where the economics probably won't work. (Which could be the whole field.) As we've seen with Theranos, and with plenty of smaller companies [1], it's easy enough to spend years taking investor money for things people want to exist but are probably or definitely impossible. That would get carbon polluters many years of delay. For corporate execs, that's plenty of time. And hey, a miracle might happen. That said, fooling people is a well-established business of its own. It started with the tobacco companies, but it sure hasn't ended there. [2] So they might be sticking with the tried and true playbook here. [1] E.g., this excellent blog on wireless charging companies: https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/ https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/ [2] https://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Their-Product-Industrys-Threatens/dp/019530067X https://www.amazon.com/Doubt-Their-Product-Industrys-Threate...

slavik81 8y ago

I would expect the opposite. If carbon sequestration is cheap, then it's not a big deal to demand that businesses purchase offsets to be carbon neutral. But, I'm still skeptical because these sorts of breakthroughs are always overhyped. If it's real, the proof is in the pudding.

chrisweekly 8y ago

I hear you, and in terms of the merits of this particular study I'm sure your skepticism is well-grounded; I share it. But, it's also worth considering the perspective of the "Big Oil" executives. Thought experiment: imagine you're such an exec, and you recognize that the future of your company (in fact, your whole industry), depends on evolving beyond oil, to become an _energy_ company, embracing (and innovating in, and profiting from) renewable sources. What do you do? How do you start? I am NOT repeat NOT an apologist for the selfish idiot criminals (insert unprintables here) who effectively destroy the planet for personal gain. And yes the fossil fuel industry as a whole has a horrible and well-deserved reputation. But some of these entities are going to adapt and change, and for better or worse they're going to play a role in how our species relates to the planet. So I think it's really important to remain skeptical, but without ruling out, out of hand, the possibility that ties to the energy industry are not an automatic disqualifier for real science and progress.

Retric 8y ago
It's a question of scale, the oil industry is vast. Exxon has ~1/4 of a trillion dollars per year in revenue while profits swing they tend to be very good over time. Renewables on the other hand are fractured. Do they go for Wind, Solar, Batteries, Bio fuels, or what? It's not that hard to keep Exxon alive through this transition, but you also need to keep it huge and profitable which is very tricky. IMO, they might be better off going into chemistry or engineering because being an energy company sounds fine there is little connection between renewables and oil. But again how do you keep that kind of scale?
- linkregister 8y ago
  This is indeed part of Exxon's publicly-stated strategy; they recognize that the demand for oil will peak once renewables, distribution, and storage technology are cheaper than the cost of extraction. There are already several solar power plants that were built because the unit economics made sense in those rare, outlier situations. This will become more widespread.

ggg9990 8y ago

Not really. The influence:price ratio of academia is very high -- they can be bought very cheaply. It doesn't really take much to fund a study compared to the earnings of a big corporation. Tesla or similar could easily fund anti-fossil fuel studies and categorize them just as miscellaneous marketing expenses.

cup-of-tea 8y ago

> The sheer mass of money in position to lobby for the "fossil fuel use is fine!" position dwarfs that of all other financially-fraught research questions put together. Not only that but a very large number of people want to believe results like this are true. People are really scared to downgrade their lives and will resist at any cost. Clinging to delusional beliefs is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

zamalek 8y ago

> The sheer mass of money in position to lobby for the "fossil fuel use is fine!" I wish them all the best. At the end of the day Shell has come forward and indicated that renewable energy is best, despite their namesake. I'd own an EV if I could, but I can't: the next best is a hybrid. The two times I fill up a month I actively seek out Shell because of their stance. There are PR implications. Imagine a world where fossil fuels are fine (not fossil really, but carbon). I have great and frankly revolutionary ideas surrounding easy and fast EV refills, but they are simply horrific in the face of turning electricity from renewables and atmospheric carbon into fuel. My physics Spidey senses are tingling and this sounds too good to be true, but if it isn't: god speed.

BurningFrog 8y ago

Meh. Anyone with serious expertise in an area will have "ties" to the relevant industry. If people with such ties are untrustworthy, that means no experts can be trusted, and all you're left with is the uninformed and various angry activists. I'll take my chances with well informed experts who are possibly not perfectly impartial.

babygoat 8y ago
Meh. You’ll only take your chances with someone who absolutely has conflicts of interest is what you’re really saying.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  No, what they're saying is that conflicts of interest are so common and mundane that they don't have much signal on their own.
maxander 8y ago
When corporate grants are bringing research groups into existence more or less from scratch, it's fair to call it more than "ties." At the very least, this is far beyond the norm in fields I keep track of- for instance, pharmaceutical companies helping fund academic biomedical research happens, certainly, but only in limited cases and generally it's considered a significant asterisk next to whatever the study finds. When those same companies are carrying out their own research (say, clinical trials for a new drug) they typically do so under external supervision, with rigorous reporting standards. For that matter, the choice isn't between oil-industry experts and complete novices. Carbon capture is chemistry; there are plenty of chemical engineers with independently-funded academic positions, or involved in non-oil-industry funded companies. If some of them published a review of the plausibility of carbon capture, I'd listen to it.
- SubiculumCode 8y ago
  But there is no advantage here to produce FUD. In fact it acknowledges the primary problems of fossil fuels, not deny them. They are not seeking FDA approval on a drug, or trying to show that CO2 makes us smarter and healthier. I won't use more gas now because of this article. However, if they can do it (and they have for several years in a test), then we can slow the rate of new carbon, while the growth of solar continues to grow, I think it is a potential win for us, and for a company able to do it.

rorykoehler 8y ago

Doesn't change anything. I still would take the method that produces no air pollutants as my number one choice. I also care about localised pollution from cars etc and not only climate change.

pif 8y ago

> The sheer mass of money in position to lobby for the "fossil fuel use is fine!"... Please, let me play the role of the devil's advocate for a moment: fossil fuel use is fine! It MUST be fine! Fossil fuel gives people cheap energy that used to come from muscles (human and animal) and, in particular, comfortable ways to move around, where you want, when you want. People switched to fossil fuel as soon as possible because life got immediately enormously more joyful. Global warming is two more Celsius degrees for average atmosphere temperature. Give me two degrees less each day and I'll give you back my car... just to ask it back the following day, and maybe I'll propose you to give a couple more degrees each day in exchange for no more whining about good old days' cars (nowadays labelled as "polluting" cars).

null000 8y ago

Really? I view this research as opening the way for laws mandating oil/gasoline producers reach carbon neutrality by funding/implementing mass carbon extraction as part of the cost of drilling. Sure, they'll still be doing massive ecological harm with oil spills, disruptive drilling, fracking-related earthquakes/water reservoir contamination, and so on, but at least we won't bake ourselves to death, there's that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯