3 ms·

If you want make your money work against climate change, I wouldn't recommend this service - it's simply not competitive compared to voluntary carbon markets, i

by valw 7y ago

If you want make your money work against climate change, I wouldn't recommend this service - it's simply not competitive compared to voluntary carbon markets, in which well-certified projects can offset a teqCO2 for less than 10 USD (that's 100 times more efficient carbon offsetting than ClimeWorks, for high-end projects), and do so with additional co-benefits in terms of biodiversity and livelihood of local communities. REDD+ projects such as https://www.standfortrees.org https://www.standfortrees.org are good examples of that. The differentiating factor of this service is that it's "Permanent: turn CO2 into stone". That benefit is mostly psychological, not pragmatic. Aside from that, the 'small land and water usage' metric is also biased. Yes, rainforest protection projects use land, and you know what else they do? Protect rainforests! It's also not that promising as a CCS technology. Just like energy, CO2 is most efficiently captured where its concentration is highest - that is in power plants, steelmaking plants, etc. I know we love revolutionary startups and shiny new things here, but there are scientific bodies and certification standards which have already done the work well in this space, looking at the problem with a holistic approach and with numbers. I know people mean well here, but for climate change what matters is results, not intentions - so run the numbers before you throw your money out of the window. Cool startup branding is not what makes a project impactful.

dwild 7y ago
Why not both? Planting tree is nice, but theses solutions you give have limits, which will only make the cost higher. This is a technological solution, sure it has limits too, but its cost will only go down by being done more efficiently and at one point, we will need to do theses things too, thus the sooner we reach lower price, the better we will be. As you said, it's 100x more expensive, thus no industrial client will consider this solution yet, but you can afford it. Be the first stone that allow them to become 50x more expensive, etc... Being client to them show also that we are ready to put money where our mouth are. That push toward more investment in theses spheres because there's money in the game. Investing into planting trees at 1/100 the cost... well except exploiting even more cheap labor... there's no money to be made.
- valw 7y ago
  There's a common misconception that voluntary carbon market projects solely consist of planting trees - that's not the case. There are also forest protection projects, energy transition projects, and so on. ClimeWorks' project could be certified as well... but then carbon credit buyers would realize it's just less effective than the alternatives. I guess that's why ClimeWorks's go-to-market strategy is 'high-tech' branding: they go after technology lovers rather rather than informed investors. Also see what I mentioned about CCS. AFAIK, the most promising CCS technology consist of burning biomass in power plants, and then using geological confinement of the sequestered carbon. The reason it's more effective, as I mentioned, is because the carbon is captured where its concentration is high - less entropy to fight. It's absolutely true that current offsetting methodologies won't always stay so cheap - and as prices rise, new innovative methodologies will develop. Buying carbon credits is not an impediment to innovation; but it has the advantage of rewarding projects for being efficient, rather than "technologically cool".
  - dwild 7y ago
    > There are also forest protection projects Same constraint as planting tree... at one point there's no more forest to protect (or the cost of protecting one just increase). It will just get more expensive. > energy transition projects This one is interesting, again, will just get more expensive with time, but that one I never seen any project that allow to buy carbon credit for theses kinds of projects. > AFAIK, the most promising CCS technology consist of burning biomass in power plants, and then using geological confinement of the sequestered carbon. Where can I offset my CO2 emission that way? I don't care about investing in a solution that has no future. If what I pay for it means that it will just make the next ton more expensive, when it's already hard to make people pay for it already, I'm not for that solution. Sure that one is 100x more expensive, but the cost can only go down with scale, and if it doesn't, well it will just push other technological solution to be developed because it's a proof there's money in sustainable solutions.
    - valw 7y ago
      > This one is interesting, again, will just get more expensive with time, but that one I never seen any project that allow to buy carbon credit for theses kinds of projects. And yet Gold Standard reports renewable energy projects are a high share of their pipeline: https://www.goldstandard.org/sites/default/files/documents/market_report_2017.pdf https://www.goldstandard.org/sites/default/files/documents/m... > Where can I offset my CO2 emission that way? That's still at an experimental stage AFAIK (like most CCS technology), so unfortunately not yet available for such purposes. > I don't care about investing in a solution that has no future. If what I pay for it means that it will just make the next ton more expensive, when it's already hard to make people pay for it already, I'm not for that solution. A more optimistic way to look at it is as such: if we commit to offsetting our emissions by buying carbon credits, rising prices will pressure us towards reducing our emissions. That's where we want to be headed, because there is NO future where emissions remain high and are totally offset. I would encourage you to rethink your approach as follows: invest in the transition, not in the destination. > Sure that one is 100x more expensive, but the cost can only go down with scale, and if it doesn't, well it will just push other technological solution to be developed because it's a proof there's money in sustainable solutions. What makes you so sure that ClimeWork's solution can scale better? Their solution requires huge energy expenditures, and its not like we have a lot of geologically favourable sites for their solution. If you want long-term innovation, why not fund general CCS research instead? It's much more likely to yield impactful and well-thought solutions.

by valw 7y ago

dwild 7y ago

Why not both? Planting tree is nice, but theses solutions you give have limits, which will only make the cost higher. This is a technological solution, sure it has limits too, but its cost will only go down by being done more efficiently and at one point, we will need to do theses things too, thus the sooner we reach lower price, the better we will be. As you said, it's 100x more expensive, thus no industrial client will consider this solution yet, but you can afford it. Be the first stone that allow them to become 50x more expensive, etc... Being client to them show also that we are ready to put money where our mouth are. That push toward more investment in theses spheres because there's money in the game. Investing into planting trees at 1/100 the cost... well except exploiting even more cheap labor... there's no money to be made.

valw 7y ago
There's a common misconception that voluntary carbon market projects solely consist of planting trees - that's not the case. There are also forest protection projects, energy transition projects, and so on. ClimeWorks' project could be certified as well... but then carbon credit buyers would realize it's just less effective than the alternatives. I guess that's why ClimeWorks's go-to-market strategy is 'high-tech' branding: they go after technology lovers rather rather than informed investors. Also see what I mentioned about CCS. AFAIK, the most promising CCS technology consist of burning biomass in power plants, and then using geological confinement of the sequestered carbon. The reason it's more effective, as I mentioned, is because the carbon is captured where its concentration is high - less entropy to fight. It's absolutely true that current offsetting methodologies won't always stay so cheap - and as prices rise, new innovative methodologies will develop. Buying carbon credits is not an impediment to innovation; but it has the advantage of rewarding projects for being efficient, rather than "technologically cool".
- dwild 7y ago
  > There are also forest protection projects Same constraint as planting tree... at one point there's no more forest to protect (or the cost of protecting one just increase). It will just get more expensive. > energy transition projects This one is interesting, again, will just get more expensive with time, but that one I never seen any project that allow to buy carbon credit for theses kinds of projects. > AFAIK, the most promising CCS technology consist of burning biomass in power plants, and then using geological confinement of the sequestered carbon. Where can I offset my CO2 emission that way? I don't care about investing in a solution that has no future. If what I pay for it means that it will just make the next ton more expensive, when it's already hard to make people pay for it already, I'm not for that solution. Sure that one is 100x more expensive, but the cost can only go down with scale, and if it doesn't, well it will just push other technological solution to be developed because it's a proof there's money in sustainable solutions.
  - valw 7y ago
    > This one is interesting, again, will just get more expensive with time, but that one I never seen any project that allow to buy carbon credit for theses kinds of projects. And yet Gold Standard reports renewable energy projects are a high share of their pipeline: https://www.goldstandard.org/sites/default/files/documents/market_report_2017.pdf https://www.goldstandard.org/sites/default/files/documents/m... > Where can I offset my CO2 emission that way? That's still at an experimental stage AFAIK (like most CCS technology), so unfortunately not yet available for such purposes. > I don't care about investing in a solution that has no future. If what I pay for it means that it will just make the next ton more expensive, when it's already hard to make people pay for it already, I'm not for that solution. A more optimistic way to look at it is as such: if we commit to offsetting our emissions by buying carbon credits, rising prices will pressure us towards reducing our emissions. That's where we want to be headed, because there is NO future where emissions remain high and are totally offset. I would encourage you to rethink your approach as follows: invest in the transition, not in the destination. > Sure that one is 100x more expensive, but the cost can only go down with scale, and if it doesn't, well it will just push other technological solution to be developed because it's a proof there's money in sustainable solutions. What makes you so sure that ClimeWork's solution can scale better? Their solution requires huge energy expenditures, and its not like we have a lot of geologically favourable sites for their solution. If you want long-term innovation, why not fund general CCS research instead? It's much more likely to yield impactful and well-thought solutions.