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Why do you consider carbon capture a stop gap solution? We still have thousands of tons more CO2 in the atmosphere than is safe, and it needs to be removed. Cea

by m4x 5y ago

Why do you consider carbon capture a stop gap solution? We still have thousands of tons more CO2 in the atmosphere than is safe, and it needs to be removed. Ceasing further emissions is also important, but not enough on its own.

jillesvangurp 5y ago
Because it keeps dumping carbon in the atmosphere acceptable for longer, which at this point just isn't acceptable anymore. Carbon capture is not about reducing the amount of carbon in our atmosphere but merely about reducing the rate at which it grows by prolonging the business models that are destroying our planet. Those business models need to get seriously unprofitable in a hurry. Carbon capture schemes are subsidies designed to keep them profitable. No carbon capture system exists that is economical without subsidies. We're capturing a percentages of what we should not be putting in the atmosphere to begin with and even those percentages are questionable if you factor in the losses, the inefficiencies, the inevitable optimism about how much is actually captured, and the inevitable ease with which those inefficiencies are green-washed away. Most of these schemes are actually pretty wacky, leaky, and questionable and don't stand a lot of scrutiny. For example we are green washing stuff like creating blue hydrogen which works by creating it from methane and than "capturing" some of the carbon in a way where it ends up in the atmosphere after some time anyway. The goal here is monetizing the methane in a way that companies can get away with it; not actually capturing the carbon. Likewise, other companies are planting some trees to compensate for their industrial scale burning of oil, gas, etc. they are capturing nowhere close to what they put out. Or people are "capturing" carbon by intensively turning soil into desert (which emits a shit tonne of carbon) while harvesting corn; which we then burn as well. There's no end to how messed up the carbon bookkeeping is for a lot of this stuff. Most of it serves just one thing: green washing stuff we need to stop doing urgently. Kill the subsidies and most of these schemes instantly stop making sense.
- m4x 5y ago
  I think you are conflating two issues. Continued pollution is a problem, regardless of whether carbon capture or something else is used as the excuse. Carbon capture itself is not the problem there. We need to do two things: a) stop polluting further, and b) re-sequester as much of the GHG currently in the atmosphere as we can. Carbon capture helps with the second requirement, and doesn't particularly harm the first (since if carbon capture was not a useful excuse the polluters would simply find or make another)

by m4x 5y ago

jillesvangurp 5y ago

Because it keeps dumping carbon in the atmosphere acceptable for longer, which at this point just isn't acceptable anymore. Carbon capture is not about reducing the amount of carbon in our atmosphere but merely about reducing the rate at which it grows by prolonging the business models that are destroying our planet. Those business models need to get seriously unprofitable in a hurry. Carbon capture schemes are subsidies designed to keep them profitable. No carbon capture system exists that is economical without subsidies. We're capturing a percentages of what we should not be putting in the atmosphere to begin with and even those percentages are questionable if you factor in the losses, the inefficiencies, the inevitable optimism about how much is actually captured, and the inevitable ease with which those inefficiencies are green-washed away. Most of these schemes are actually pretty wacky, leaky, and questionable and don't stand a lot of scrutiny. For example we are green washing stuff like creating blue hydrogen which works by creating it from methane and than "capturing" some of the carbon in a way where it ends up in the atmosphere after some time anyway. The goal here is monetizing the methane in a way that companies can get away with it; not actually capturing the carbon. Likewise, other companies are planting some trees to compensate for their industrial scale burning of oil, gas, etc. they are capturing nowhere close to what they put out. Or people are "capturing" carbon by intensively turning soil into desert (which emits a shit tonne of carbon) while harvesting corn; which we then burn as well. There's no end to how messed up the carbon bookkeeping is for a lot of this stuff. Most of it serves just one thing: green washing stuff we need to stop doing urgently. Kill the subsidies and most of these schemes instantly stop making sense.

m4x 5y ago
I think you are conflating two issues. Continued pollution is a problem, regardless of whether carbon capture or something else is used as the excuse. Carbon capture itself is not the problem there. We need to do two things: a) stop polluting further, and b) re-sequester as much of the GHG currently in the atmosphere as we can. Carbon capture helps with the second requirement, and doesn't particularly harm the first (since if carbon capture was not a useful excuse the polluters would simply find or make another)