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This is an amazing pledge and very powerful statement. However, I am not 100% convinced morally of CCS solutions. The main counter argument being that CCS tec

This is an amazing pledge and very powerful statement. However, I am not 100% convinced morally of CCS solutions. The main counter argument being that CCS technology enables the status quo of fossil fuel burning to continue. On the other hand, there are some heavy industries (steel production?) that do not have any alternatives to coal burning in order to operate and CCS can offset the carbon footprint in these industries. I would however not call this "negative emissions" but rather "emission-free" or similar. What is your opinion on CCS? Can people convince me in either direction?

moultano 7y ago
Limiting climate change to 2C is such a hail mary at this point that we should look favorably on anything, no matter how imperfect, that moves us in that direction. There are no silver bullets, we need to do everything at once.
- itcrowd 7y ago
  While I agree that there are no silver bullets and multiple approaches are required, I don't agree that we need to pursue everything that may help. First, a lot of R&D must be done (for all types of solutions) and the money to fund this can only be spent once. So we need to pre-select some promising ideas (could still be many ideas, but not all ideas). Second, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. While I am pretty neutral / undecided on nuclear power, some argue that the (potential) problems it brings along are not worth the risk, even if it is a carbon neutral method of power production. Third, CCS technology disincentiveses investment and R&D into fully renewable energy production (the point made before) (I would like to emphasize here that I am not arguing about the extent or existence of a climate crisis. I am aware of the literature and agree that immediate action is required to limit carbon emissions)
  - henryfjordan 7y ago
    Even if you could snap your fingers and make perfectly renewable energy, we still have the problem that there's a bunch of carbon in the air that used to be in the ground, and that's not going away unless we do something about it.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    > Third, CCS technology disincentiveses investment and R&D into fully renewable energy production (the point made before) Eh, renewable energy is getting quite cheap. If you add the costs of CCS into fossil fuel, I think you'll still have plenty of incentives to invest on renewables, and to use fossil as a last resort only.
tlb 7y ago
There isn't some intrinsic moral sin to burning carbon. There are just practical problems with having too much in the atmosphere. If you can remove carbon, especially if you can also convert it back into fuel, that solves the problem. (Carbon isn't the only emission from burning coal -- it contains sulfur and thorium too. But these can also be mitigated with some expense. And if you're converting CO2 directly to fuel, there's no increase in pollution at all.)
- itcrowd 7y ago
  I would argue there is a moral "sin" in releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, because (in your words) it leads to "practical problems", i.e. anthropogenic climate change. If you can remove the carbon again, then it is still a "sin" unless you pay to have your share removed. If it can then be converted to fuel again that is an added bonus. Of course, this whole process needs to occur at a massive scale because we are releasing so much carbon dioxide and want to remove more than we are currently emitting. (P.s. I don't like the word "sin" in this context because of the theological connotation it implies, but I hope the message is clear)
- maximente 7y ago
  no, this is too simplistic. extracting carbon from the ground is neither free nor reversable so this analogy isn't appropriate here. even if one could turn it back into whatever it's original form was (impossible to do without additional energy due to thermodyamics/entropy), the site of extraction is way worse for the wear.
  - harryh 7y ago
    No one cares about the "worse for the wear" problems of digging holes in the ground in Saudi Arabia. The whole problem is the CO2 that ends up in our air on the other end of the process.
    - maximente 7y ago
      > digging holes in the ground in Saudi Arabia are you aware of fracking and tar sands and their environmental impacts? you cannot possibly trivialize those as "digging holes in the ground".
doctorpangloss 7y ago
You could just buy oil and not burn it. Far simpler than CCS.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Eh? That assumes oil production is static. We have effectively infinite resources of fossil fuels still yet to be extracted. That's like saying you can reduce car miles driven by buying a car and not driving it. Another one will just be made.
  - davidw 7y ago
    And you've increased the demand, ever so slightly.
    - esotericn 7y ago
      Yep.
  - doctorpangloss 7y ago
    > Another one will just be made Can we legislate a cap on the production of anything?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- ajross 7y ago
  That does nothing to reduce consumption. Oil isn't zero sum. If you make the market less efficient prices will rise a bit, but production numbers will still match demand. Fracking taught us this. If you want a simple solution, buy a farm and bury the output. Simpler than storing a bunch of oil, even. But not very effective relative to land use.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
bobbygoodlatte 7y ago
I think it depends what the lower limit of this technology is in terms of cost-per-ton. If the technology can get 100X cheaper, it would be immoral not to pursue it. If it only gets 2-3X as cheap as it is today, it might create the moral excuse you cited and be a net-negative. My instinct is it could be an extremely important technology for fighting climate change. And while it develops it's important to continue to insist that it doesn't excuse the emissions it might offset.
- itcrowd 7y ago
  Well put, the scalability is a nice insight.
ajross 7y ago
> However, I am not 100% convinced morally of CCS solutions. So... let's put off saving the planet because someone has moral qualms? No. This is a legitimate emergency. If we have something that has a net positive impact, we need to do it and stop arguing about it on the internet. Nothing is without tradeoffs, and some are simply going to have to be made. There are no easy solutions. We have seven billion people to feed while we manage to undo all the damage too, remember. I'm not saying capture solutions are the best choice, mind you. I'm saying that decision needs to be made with numbers and not "morals".
kingbirdy 7y ago
The status quo of burning fossil fuels will continue whether we employ CCS or not, so we may as well use every tool available.
godelski 7y ago
It's a fair question, but I'll ask you "what's the alternative?" We can't plant enough trees. Nor can we always plant them in the most needed places (North, where carbon accumulates). We can't build even public transport (which is still positive emissions). We can't get everyone to go vegan (which still is positive emissions. Even lab meat won't make negative emissions). We can't stop air travel and shipping without significantly affecting people's lives (including their ability to live, as drugs, equipment, and experts aren't all created locally). We can't get everyone to leave their homes and concentrate into cities. Even if we could do all that, we'd still be positive. Worse, how do we get every country in the world to do the same? It seems infeasible to me. And it doesn't address the problems like that carbon builds up in certain areas that we just can't even plant trees. But here's the thing. The argument isn't "planting trees vs CC", it is "trees + CC". Actually it's more! It's about using every available method we have at our disposal. There is nothing wrong with burning carbon actually. The issue is burning so much that we are destroying the plant. Destroying the planet is the issue. If we have negative emissions total (and aren't creating carbon hot zones) then who cares how much we emit? As long as it's captured and doesn't damage the planet. Leaving CC off the table is like telling a bunch of starving children that they can't have hamburgers because some of them might eat too many and get fat. The concern is completely missing the point of the problem.
Ma8ee 7y ago
SSAB and LKAB are experimenting with burning hydrogen instead of coal for steelproduction.

moultano 7y ago

Limiting climate change to 2C is such a hail mary at this point that we should look favorably on anything, no matter how imperfect, that moves us in that direction. There are no silver bullets, we need to do everything at once.

itcrowd 7y ago
While I agree that there are no silver bullets and multiple approaches are required, I don't agree that we need to pursue everything that may help. First, a lot of R&D must be done (for all types of solutions) and the money to fund this can only be spent once. So we need to pre-select some promising ideas (could still be many ideas, but not all ideas). Second, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. While I am pretty neutral / undecided on nuclear power, some argue that the (potential) problems it brings along are not worth the risk, even if it is a carbon neutral method of power production. Third, CCS technology disincentiveses investment and R&D into fully renewable energy production (the point made before) (I would like to emphasize here that I am not arguing about the extent or existence of a climate crisis. I am aware of the literature and agree that immediate action is required to limit carbon emissions)
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  Even if you could snap your fingers and make perfectly renewable energy, we still have the problem that there's a bunch of carbon in the air that used to be in the ground, and that's not going away unless we do something about it.
- icebraining 7y ago
  > Third, CCS technology disincentiveses investment and R&D into fully renewable energy production (the point made before) Eh, renewable energy is getting quite cheap. If you add the costs of CCS into fossil fuel, I think you'll still have plenty of incentives to invest on renewables, and to use fossil as a last resort only.

tlb 7y ago

There isn't some intrinsic moral sin to burning carbon. There are just practical problems with having too much in the atmosphere. If you can remove carbon, especially if you can also convert it back into fuel, that solves the problem. (Carbon isn't the only emission from burning coal -- it contains sulfur and thorium too. But these can also be mitigated with some expense. And if you're converting CO2 directly to fuel, there's no increase in pollution at all.)

itcrowd 7y ago
I would argue there is a moral "sin" in releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, because (in your words) it leads to "practical problems", i.e. anthropogenic climate change. If you can remove the carbon again, then it is still a "sin" unless you pay to have your share removed. If it can then be converted to fuel again that is an added bonus. Of course, this whole process needs to occur at a massive scale because we are releasing so much carbon dioxide and want to remove more than we are currently emitting. (P.s. I don't like the word "sin" in this context because of the theological connotation it implies, but I hope the message is clear)
maximente 7y ago
no, this is too simplistic. extracting carbon from the ground is neither free nor reversable so this analogy isn't appropriate here. even if one could turn it back into whatever it's original form was (impossible to do without additional energy due to thermodyamics/entropy), the site of extraction is way worse for the wear.
- harryh 7y ago
  No one cares about the "worse for the wear" problems of digging holes in the ground in Saudi Arabia. The whole problem is the CO2 that ends up in our air on the other end of the process.
  - maximente 7y ago
    > digging holes in the ground in Saudi Arabia are you aware of fracking and tar sands and their environmental impacts? you cannot possibly trivialize those as "digging holes in the ground".

doctorpangloss 7y ago

You could just buy oil and not burn it. Far simpler than CCS.

esotericn 7y ago
Eh? That assumes oil production is static. We have effectively infinite resources of fossil fuels still yet to be extracted. That's like saying you can reduce car miles driven by buying a car and not driving it. Another one will just be made.
- davidw 7y ago
  And you've increased the demand, ever so slightly.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    Yep.
- doctorpangloss 7y ago
  > Another one will just be made Can we legislate a cap on the production of anything?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
ajross 7y ago
That does nothing to reduce consumption. Oil isn't zero sum. If you make the market less efficient prices will rise a bit, but production numbers will still match demand. Fracking taught us this. If you want a simple solution, buy a farm and bury the output. Simpler than storing a bunch of oil, even. But not very effective relative to land use.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

bobbygoodlatte 7y ago

I think it depends what the lower limit of this technology is in terms of cost-per-ton. If the technology can get 100X cheaper, it would be immoral not to pursue it. If it only gets 2-3X as cheap as it is today, it might create the moral excuse you cited and be a net-negative. My instinct is it could be an extremely important technology for fighting climate change. And while it develops it's important to continue to insist that it doesn't excuse the emissions it might offset.

itcrowd 7y ago
Well put, the scalability is a nice insight.

ajross 7y ago

> However, I am not 100% convinced morally of CCS solutions. So... let's put off saving the planet because someone has moral qualms? No. This is a legitimate emergency. If we have something that has a net positive impact, we need to do it and stop arguing about it on the internet. Nothing is without tradeoffs, and some are simply going to have to be made. There are no easy solutions. We have seven billion people to feed while we manage to undo all the damage too, remember. I'm not saying capture solutions are the best choice, mind you. I'm saying that decision needs to be made with numbers and not "morals".

kingbirdy 7y ago

The status quo of burning fossil fuels will continue whether we employ CCS or not, so we may as well use every tool available.

godelski 7y ago

It's a fair question, but I'll ask you "what's the alternative?" We can't plant enough trees. Nor can we always plant them in the most needed places (North, where carbon accumulates). We can't build even public transport (which is still positive emissions). We can't get everyone to go vegan (which still is positive emissions. Even lab meat won't make negative emissions). We can't stop air travel and shipping without significantly affecting people's lives (including their ability to live, as drugs, equipment, and experts aren't all created locally). We can't get everyone to leave their homes and concentrate into cities. Even if we could do all that, we'd still be positive. Worse, how do we get every country in the world to do the same? It seems infeasible to me. And it doesn't address the problems like that carbon builds up in certain areas that we just can't even plant trees. But here's the thing. The argument isn't "planting trees vs CC", it is "trees + CC". Actually it's more! It's about using every available method we have at our disposal. There is nothing wrong with burning carbon actually. The issue is burning so much that we are destroying the plant. Destroying the planet is the issue. If we have negative emissions total (and aren't creating carbon hot zones) then who cares how much we emit? As long as it's captured and doesn't damage the planet. Leaving CC off the table is like telling a bunch of starving children that they can't have hamburgers because some of them might eat too many and get fat. The concern is completely missing the point of the problem.

Ma8ee 7y ago

SSAB and LKAB are experimenting with burning hydrogen instead of coal for steelproduction.