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You are right that getting every last mole of Co2 in a controlled manner is doomed, but fortunately that is not required. What you really want is for net emissi
by chris_va 7y ago
You are right that getting every last mole of Co2 in a controlled manner is doomed, but fortunately that is not required. What you really want is for net emissions to go to zero or even negative. If you are just pulling Co2 out of flue gas, that's very difficult (without BECCS, which is a separate thing).
However, Direct Air Capture is also economical at some price point (optimistically around $130/ton). At that point, you don't have to nab every last mole of Co2 that the oil companies pump up because you can always pull it back out of the air. You just need a profitable market to make it economical to spend that money.
- drcode 7y agoIf this was true, then the oil companies could just build a machine that directly converts hydrocarbons into CO2 underground and extracts the energy in the form of electricity and the hydrocarbons could stay below ground through the entire process. No carbon taxes necessary.