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The worry is that the discussion will create a false sense of future security, undermining current mitigation efforts. Or worse; that hope for future technologi
by Bluestrike2 8y ago
The worry is that the discussion will create a false sense of future security, undermining current mitigation efforts. Or worse; that hope for future technological options can be politically weaponized to undermine more immediate actions. There are plenty of entrenched interests that have immense short-term incentives to do just that. Climate engineering will eventually help us mitigate some of the consequences. Some form is pretty much assumed as a given necessity even. But there are major mitigation efforts to be undertaken now. The earlier we mitigate the effects, the less extreme the interventions with climate engineering will need to be in the future.
Because no matter how much the price for direct air capture (DAC) falls in the future, it's still going to be massive. The submitted paper estimates a current cost of between $94 and $232 per ton. That's a big drop from a decade ago on a per ton basis, but it's still massive overall. At the low end you're looking at a minimum of ~$1.34 trillion annually if we were able to capture 100% of the 32.5 GtC of emissions accumulated in the atmosphere in 2017 alone. That's also completely ignoring the total ~230 GtC of the same since 1870 as well as emissions absorbed by the land and oceans (which has its own negative effects).
Nobody expects to remove all of it, or even all of what we'll continue to emit via DAC. Just keeping the expected increase to under the 2°C degree upper limit agreed to in the Paris Agreement is going to be challenging in itself even with cheaper, more efficient DAC methods. Actually reversing the temperature changes would be the "dream" for climate engineering. Something like that--which would involve every type of carbon dioxide removal methods along with atmospheric and space-based solar radiation management--would be a herculean project on a scale the human race has never before attempted. It'd make the Apollo program look like a five year old with a lemonade stand. And eventually, we'll have to figure out a way to make real progress on that front.
Basically, the hope that climate engineering will allow us to fix it later--or better yet, the dream that we can reverse it altogether--is both appealing and potentially dangerous. Why sacrifice today when we'll figure it out tomorrow? Just look at US infrastructure spending for an example of that kind of thinking.
- guy_c 8y agoNot sure how accurate but napkin maths and quick google suggest barrel of oil produces 118 kg of co2. So about 9 barrels to produce a ton. Barrel is $67. So cost of capture might add 15% to 38% to cost of oil.
- DoctorOetker 8y agothe ~$100 per ton of CO2 is only to capture CO2 to the form of K2CO3, the energy cost to convert this to fuel will be much more!
- linkregister 8y agoI believe what the poster was implying is that in a future scheme, the cost of carbon capture would be directly added to the cost of the fuel. This is in line with other extraction industries, e.g. logging, where the loggers must plant replacement trees. The cost of that replacement is incorporated into that of the lumber, wood pulp, etc.
- DoctorOetker 8y agoIn the future (where all fuel is manufactured by energy from renewables), the price of carbon fuel would simply be the price of manufacture: capturing CO2 and energizing it into fuel. Or are we celebratinng the fact that some people learned about objective energetic cost today? Capturing CO2 has never been hard, and to make the analogy with the loggers planting trees more complete, the price component due to capture would be almost nothing compared to the price component of turning CO2 into fuel which would make up the majority of the price of this future fuel.
- AstralStorm 8y agoAnd how do you get enough substrates, plus how expensive and energy intensive they are?
- joss82 8y agoThis is not correct. A barrel of oil is 118kg of pure carbon but when burning this translate to roughly 450kg of CO2 (because carbon combines with heavier oxygen to form CO2) This is without taking into account the CO2 that is emitted to extract the oil from the ground.
- acqq 8y ago
- phicoh 8y agoI think there is an easy way kill this DAC concept. Have a tax on fossil fuels that in 10 years time ramps up to the cost of capturing CO2. The government will use this tax to buy services of companies that do this. Big companies can also capture CO2 themselves and pay less tax (or get a refund) if they can prove they did so. This way, you can bet on DAC becoming cheap, or you can invest in renewables.
- honestoHeminway 8y agoI think there is a easy way to kill your countermeasure. Monetary support for anti-government sentiments.
- piker 8y ago> easy way ... tax on fossil fuels I'm not sure those two phrases belong in the same paragraph, for the same exact reasons stated by the gp.
- gustaf 8y agoThe Paris Climate models (1.5 degrees and 2 degrees) assumes that we are going have to remove a lot of carbon. This is not an either or - we need to both move to a carbon-free economy and remove carbon
- T2_t2 8y ago> we need to both move to a carbon-free economy and remove carbon We need to move to a net negative carbon economy (not carbon free, net negative), or find ways to reduce input heat (reflecting sunlight basically).
- gepi79 8y ago"At the low end you're looking at a minimum of ~$1.34 trillion annually if we were able to capture 100% of the 32.5 GtC of emissions accumulated in the atmosphere in 2017 alone." Just $1.34 trillion for the recycling of carbon of an entire year like 2017 is crazy cheap. Once installed, the machines can recycle every year for much less money. One has to wonder why it has not been done alreday. Compare with: Annual global fossil fuel subsidies amounting to $5.3 trillion in 2015 (6.5% of global GDP): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16304867 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1... Dr. Mark Skidmore – $21 Trillion Missing from US Federal Budget: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CwpjIwwI9o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CwpjIwwI9o
- ben_w 8y ago> One has to wonder why it has not been done alreday. Psychology, I think. We’re not, as a species, good with numbers like that. Brexit was fought over a much smaller sum, both gross and as a percentage of the economy.
- gepi79 8y agoIMO lack of knowledge, lack of technology (e.g. affordable electric cars), bad contracts, conservative politicians (and voters) and corrupt politicians. Corrupt in the sense of personal profit (including lucrative talks and positions in companies and donations by companies) and profit for established national companies.
- pif 8y ago> The worry is that the discussion will create a false sense of future security, A false sense of future security already exists, but on the opposite side! I'm sick of hearing people complaining about pollution and how we should switch to greener energy, without ever specifying which such magic green source of energy we may use! I hear a lot about electric cars, but it's not clear to me what is an acceptable way to refill those batteries: burning oil in big thermal stations instead of private engines? Nuclear? New dams for hydroelectric? When will people swallow the fact that our current lifestyle depends on the availability of cheap energy and that such energy has to be taken somewhere? Please, let's stop saying stupidly just "no". Let's rather look for alternatives and we'll all be happier!