3 ms·

Let me try to offset the cynicism here. These are welcome news. Seems like a small company in short amount of time was able to develop and validate carbon remo

Let me try to offset the cynicism here. These are welcome news. Seems like a small company in short amount of time was able to develop and validate carbon removal. Stripe's commitment helped them do this, which is great. I wish them further successes in making the process cheaper and faster.

shakezula 5y ago
I would love to see this model made feasible with a carbon tax, so that companies that couldn't meet a carbon goal could just buy their way down artificially or pay the government the taxes.
- exabrial 5y ago
  The best way to ruin a well run industry is introducing taxes. Just let it be. We've endured 25 years of BS to get this far and all the taxes in the world didn't help.
  - kolinko 5y ago
    Carbon tax is nit really a tax, but a patment for someone else to clean up your mess (released co2). And at the current prices it doesn’t cover even 20% of the cost of removal of co2, not to mention the environment destruction.
  - young_unixer 5y ago
    I'm as libertarian as they come, but if there's one action that should be taxed, that's pollution. If everyone was simply free to pollute all they wanted, we'd all end up severely ill, which doesn't sound like freedom to me.
    - kolinko 5y ago
      > but there should be no “but” in this sentence - the libertarian approach would be to allow anyone to pollute as much as they want as long as they clean up the pollution afterwards (or pay for cleanup :) )
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- JamisonM 5y ago
  That's cap and trade, right?
  - philips 5y ago
    Cap and trade is one method. Another is things like tax and dividend https://energyinnovationact.org/ https://energyinnovationact.org/
  - lend000 5y ago
    Cap and trade is an imperfect and overly complex attempt at a carbon tax, which is a direct tax on the amount of pollution created.
  - hannob 5y ago
    That's the theory of cap and trade. It's not how it works in any real-world setting.
practicalpants 5y ago
Not sure it’s about cynicism as much as about understanding what's going on. The amount of CO2 sequestered is about 80 cars/year worth, and I’m not sure if that accounts for the thermal decomposition reactions, transport, or other steps involved with bio oil production. (Worth noting the “bio oil” is not a usable product, as Charmful says on their website it’s a waste product they’re burying in the ground.) Say they had 1MM Stripes, operating at 10^6 scale, e.g. 80,000,000 cars worth, it would still actually make no difference, reducing yearly global CO2 output on the rough magnitude of .000001%. Not sure what else to say.
- kisamoto 5y ago
  It's more than the snapshot figure now though. Carbon removal is early in the development cycle and needs rapid acceleration to be able to become more efficient and scalable. However often the cost overshadows this need and companies choose the greenwashing "carbon credits" approach to save $$s which blocks the progress. Nobody can live a life without being responsible for some carbon emissions at the moment. Even if we could, there is still an excess of CO₂ already present that we need to remove. This is an early, important step.
- kolinko 5y ago
  You know about the concept of exponential growth / hockey stick in startups and tech, right?
- vidarh 5y ago
  You're extrapolating from their very first contract. The point here is the development, and driving down cost.

shakezula 5y ago

I would love to see this model made feasible with a carbon tax, so that companies that couldn't meet a carbon goal could just buy their way down artificially or pay the government the taxes.

exabrial 5y ago
The best way to ruin a well run industry is introducing taxes. Just let it be. We've endured 25 years of BS to get this far and all the taxes in the world didn't help.
- kolinko 5y ago
  Carbon tax is nit really a tax, but a patment for someone else to clean up your mess (released co2). And at the current prices it doesn’t cover even 20% of the cost of removal of co2, not to mention the environment destruction.
- young_unixer 5y ago
  I'm as libertarian as they come, but if there's one action that should be taxed, that's pollution. If everyone was simply free to pollute all they wanted, we'd all end up severely ill, which doesn't sound like freedom to me.
  - kolinko 5y ago
    > but there should be no “but” in this sentence - the libertarian approach would be to allow anyone to pollute as much as they want as long as they clean up the pollution afterwards (or pay for cleanup :) )
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
JamisonM 5y ago
That's cap and trade, right?
- philips 5y ago
  Cap and trade is one method. Another is things like tax and dividend https://energyinnovationact.org/ https://energyinnovationact.org/
- lend000 5y ago
  Cap and trade is an imperfect and overly complex attempt at a carbon tax, which is a direct tax on the amount of pollution created.
- hannob 5y ago
  That's the theory of cap and trade. It's not how it works in any real-world setting.

practicalpants 5y ago

Not sure it’s about cynicism as much as about understanding what's going on. The amount of CO2 sequestered is about 80 cars/year worth, and I’m not sure if that accounts for the thermal decomposition reactions, transport, or other steps involved with bio oil production. (Worth noting the “bio oil” is not a usable product, as Charmful says on their website it’s a waste product they’re burying in the ground.) Say they had 1MM Stripes, operating at 10^6 scale, e.g. 80,000,000 cars worth, it would still actually make no difference, reducing yearly global CO2 output on the rough magnitude of .000001%. Not sure what else to say.

kisamoto 5y ago
It's more than the snapshot figure now though. Carbon removal is early in the development cycle and needs rapid acceleration to be able to become more efficient and scalable. However often the cost overshadows this need and companies choose the greenwashing "carbon credits" approach to save $$s which blocks the progress. Nobody can live a life without being responsible for some carbon emissions at the moment. Even if we could, there is still an excess of CO₂ already present that we need to remove. This is an early, important step.
kolinko 5y ago
You know about the concept of exponential growth / hockey stick in startups and tech, right?
vidarh 5y ago
You're extrapolating from their very first contract. The point here is the development, and driving down cost.