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At a first read, this is great, because it's apolitical. It's about innovation, and is positive, I.e. doing something instead of telling people not to do someth

At a first read, this is great, because it's apolitical. It's about innovation, and is positive, I.e. doing something instead of telling people not to do something. For once this seems like something a government should be doing. I'm almost suspicious I missed something.

hannob 5y ago
> At a first read, this is great, because it's apolitical. This is a strange statement to make about DAC. Once you think about what that means there's a lot of thorny political issues. Removing carbon from the air to store it permanently does not give you anything economically. Someone's going to have to have to pay for it. Is that people who made their wealth based on fossil fuels? People who emit most or who did so in the past? Or everyone? Don't get me wrong: I'm all in favor of supporting development of this tech. But there are complicated political questions to be answered. Framing this as "apolitical" is probably not going to help.
- dymk 5y ago
  Side stepping the “is it political” part (which I have no interest in discussing- it’s a tarpit)… There is an economical advantage to reducing CO2 from the environment. It gives you an environment that humans can thrive in (by way of being an environment that the current food chain can thrive in). It’s hard to consider investing in the future when you think it might be apocalyptical. Easier if you think there is a future for humanity.
  - hannob 5y ago
    There is an advantage for society as a whole, but for the person running a single DAC machine the advantage is neglegible. (Which is kinda the inverse why climate mitigation is so hard to begin with - avoiding emissions doesn't give the person doing so a lot of advantage.)
jillesvangurp 5y ago
Oh this is very political. You just need to follow the money. Basically carbon offsetting is the notion of adding carbon to our atmosphere by continuing to e.g. burn coal or gas and by offsetting that with carbon capture. The problem with that is that it is kind of expensive. To the point where it would be cheaper to simply stop burning stuff and maybe do something cleaner instead. By instead committing to lowering cost to 100$ per tonne, the US is basically announcing subsidizing the continued dumping of CO2 in our atmosphere by making it cheaper to green-wash that business with carbon offsetting. That is going to inevitably involve some creative bookkeeping. The net effect of that will be lots more carbon ending up in the atmosphere than actually captured. Courtesy of the US tax payer. The best way to capture carbon is to leave it in the ground.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  I think OP meant it's apolitical in the sense that it can be done without any laws being passed, or summits like COP26, by anyone with some money.
- GOONIMMUNE 5y ago
  How does "leaving it in the ground" get us back to 280 ppm?
  - csee 5y ago
    It obviously doesn't and they never claimed that it did. The point is that it's cheaper on the margin to stop polluting than it is to keep polluting and then clean it up afterwards.
  - DantesKite 5y ago
    It's not clear to me 280ppm is actually ideal, because below 150ppm, most plant life on Earth begins to die from the lack of CO2 in the atmosphere. It takes a couple generations for plants to adapt (which they can), but I don't imagine most crops and forests will survive the transition well. I actually think where we're at is relatively decent. We know what's happening, can reliably predict certain storms. Definitely don't want to go any higher, but going in the opposite direction for too long is entering ice age status. The goal shouldn't be to adhere to a specific number, but identify an acceptable range/boundary.
goodpoint 5y ago
> it's apolitical Managing access and impact on shared resources like the environment is political to the maximum level. > It's about innovation, and is positive Innovation is not automatically positive. The idea that technology can magically solve all problems is techno-optimism and it's a very ideological position. > is positive, I.e. doing something instead of telling people not to do something Telling people not to do something is not negative.
jseliger 5y ago
It's something the government is already doing, in part: there's a DOE DAC RFP on the street now: https://seliger.com/2021/11/04/grant-writers-and-climate-change-the-department-of-energys-direct-air-capture-program/ https://seliger.com/2021/11/04/grant-writers-and-climate-cha...

hannob 5y ago

> At a first read, this is great, because it's apolitical. This is a strange statement to make about DAC. Once you think about what that means there's a lot of thorny political issues. Removing carbon from the air to store it permanently does not give you anything economically. Someone's going to have to have to pay for it. Is that people who made their wealth based on fossil fuels? People who emit most or who did so in the past? Or everyone? Don't get me wrong: I'm all in favor of supporting development of this tech. But there are complicated political questions to be answered. Framing this as "apolitical" is probably not going to help.

dymk 5y ago
Side stepping the “is it political” part (which I have no interest in discussing- it’s a tarpit)… There is an economical advantage to reducing CO2 from the environment. It gives you an environment that humans can thrive in (by way of being an environment that the current food chain can thrive in). It’s hard to consider investing in the future when you think it might be apocalyptical. Easier if you think there is a future for humanity.
- hannob 5y ago
  There is an advantage for society as a whole, but for the person running a single DAC machine the advantage is neglegible. (Which is kinda the inverse why climate mitigation is so hard to begin with - avoiding emissions doesn't give the person doing so a lot of advantage.)

jillesvangurp 5y ago

Oh this is very political. You just need to follow the money. Basically carbon offsetting is the notion of adding carbon to our atmosphere by continuing to e.g. burn coal or gas and by offsetting that with carbon capture. The problem with that is that it is kind of expensive. To the point where it would be cheaper to simply stop burning stuff and maybe do something cleaner instead. By instead committing to lowering cost to 100$ per tonne, the US is basically announcing subsidizing the continued dumping of CO2 in our atmosphere by making it cheaper to green-wash that business with carbon offsetting. That is going to inevitably involve some creative bookkeeping. The net effect of that will be lots more carbon ending up in the atmosphere than actually captured. Courtesy of the US tax payer. The best way to capture carbon is to leave it in the ground.

BurningFrog 5y ago
I think OP meant it's apolitical in the sense that it can be done without any laws being passed, or summits like COP26, by anyone with some money.
GOONIMMUNE 5y ago
How does "leaving it in the ground" get us back to 280 ppm?
- csee 5y ago
  It obviously doesn't and they never claimed that it did. The point is that it's cheaper on the margin to stop polluting than it is to keep polluting and then clean it up afterwards.
- DantesKite 5y ago
  It's not clear to me 280ppm is actually ideal, because below 150ppm, most plant life on Earth begins to die from the lack of CO2 in the atmosphere. It takes a couple generations for plants to adapt (which they can), but I don't imagine most crops and forests will survive the transition well. I actually think where we're at is relatively decent. We know what's happening, can reliably predict certain storms. Definitely don't want to go any higher, but going in the opposite direction for too long is entering ice age status. The goal shouldn't be to adhere to a specific number, but identify an acceptable range/boundary.

goodpoint 5y ago

> it's apolitical Managing access and impact on shared resources like the environment is political to the maximum level. > It's about innovation, and is positive Innovation is not automatically positive. The idea that technology can magically solve all problems is techno-optimism and it's a very ideological position. > is positive, I.e. doing something instead of telling people not to do something Telling people not to do something is not negative.

jseliger 5y ago

It's something the government is already doing, in part: there's a DOE DAC RFP on the street now: https://seliger.com/2021/11/04/grant-writers-and-climate-change-the-department-of-energys-direct-air-capture-program/ https://seliger.com/2021/11/04/grant-writers-and-climate-cha...