7 ms·

Removing CO₂ is far more doable, because you don't have to convince/force 7 billion people to do something. Anyone with the right equipment can just do it, wit

Removing CO₂ is far more doable, because you don't have to convince/force 7 billion people to do something. Anyone with the right equipment can just do it, without asking permission, just like CO₂ emitters can.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
You don't need permission to pay people to install wind turbines either. What you need is money. And if you have money, and a dollar spent installing wind turbines goes further than a dollar spent extracting CO2, why are you going to spend it on the inefficient thing?
- p1mrx 5y ago
  A wind turbine is only profitable if you can physically connect it to someone who needs energy while the wind is blowing. That will get harder as more are built.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    At which point the most economically efficient thing becomes to install batteries or hydro or nuclear. It still isn't carbon capture, is it?
- snovv_crash 5y ago
  Because at some point you have enough electricity.
MaxGanzII 5y ago
CO₂ is not the only factor driving ecological damage and indeed, the mass extinction event currently in progress. There are simply too many humans for the way in which we as a species currently behave. Either we need single parent families, globally, for a few generations, to get numbers down to a sustainable level, or, we have to convince/force 7 billion people to accept and adhere to major changes in how they live their lives. CO₂ is a basically easy problem, compared to this, if it is possible to take the route of geo-engineering, because, as you say, it's not necessary to change how people behave; but I think no matter what, there is a need to change how people behave, or billions die from famine and economic failure, induced by ecological collapse. I don't think people will change (indeed, there will be large numbers of people vocally against change), I think Governments will at best effectively do nothing "(we're building lots of renewable! but we're also building lots of gas at the same time!"), or more likely make things worse ("we'll phase out coal by 2070"), so my expectation is human suffering on a scale never seen before in all human history. Humans are kākāpō; we're over-reproducing, having as they did no meaningful natural predators to keep us in check, and sooner or later, that leads to ecological collapse. (The kākāpō went through several cycles of this and evolved to reproduce very, very slowly, and so came into balance with their environment, and then were very nearly almost completely wiped out when humans arrived.)
- cat_plus_plus 5y ago
  Dude, its not the 50s, most of the world is under replacement rate of reproduction. The problem now is largely the opposite, shortage of young minds to invent carbon free energy grids and young hands to build them. You can cut human population by half and still have a problem of excessive carbon emissions or transition to carbon free economy and have net zero per capita emission. Also I don't want humanity to be almost completely wiped out.
  - convolvatron 5y ago
    if young minds are really the limiting factor - maybe we could be doing a better job with education.
  - MaxGanzII 5y ago
    I may be wrong, but I think the world population is growing more quickly than you portray, and will be for some decades yet, and we currently have far too many people for how we conduct ourselves as a species. I may also be wrong to think it, but I would expect if you halved the world population, assuming it was done equally across the world, you would indeed halve human carbon emissions; half as many people, half as many homes, cars, power stations, etc.
    - rcxdude 5y ago
      Based on current trajectories, the world's population is not going to double again (or even increase by 50%), it will level off at about 10 billion and at that point perhaps start to shrink. It's possible this level is not sustainable with an acceptable standard of living, but it's not obvious and it certainly isn't inevitable that humanity will reproduce out of control.
      - MaxGanzII 5y ago
        I would say though that this is what I'm arguing. The planet can't cope now - the environment is falling apart right now, already - and the mid-range estimate there's another two or three billion people to come over the next few decades. There are estimates in excess of this, there are estimates lower. Estimates which have population declines see slow declines only. I've not seen any real understanding of why the fertility rate is dropping, particularly in first world countries. That's a concern; what happens if the factors causing this to happen are transient? That's part of why the estimates are only estimates, of course.
civilized 5y ago
If we're going to talk insanely expensive moonshots, maybe the US should install and maintain free point-of-emission carbon capture for anyone anywhere in the world who wants it, and put the technology behind it in the public domain for anyone who doesn't want it from us. Point of emission capture is at least technologically feasible.
- pkdpic 5y ago
  Kind of like how some cities / states already subsidize solar panels / heat pumps / electric appliances etc. But even more like how some organizations (like PurpleAir, maybe thats the only one though?) will get you connected with the hardware necessary to be a part of their air quality monitoring network. Except this is a way more interesting idea for a lot of reasons.
- Factorium 5y ago
  As soon as you add that requirement to coal power plants, they become immediately uneconomic to build or operate. They are already borderline due to the fall in cost of renewables. With a meagre Carbon Tax of $15/tonne, coal costs double in the US. There's nothing that can be done to fix coal power apart from just shutting it all down.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - civilized 5y ago
    It would be great to do sane carbon policy, but politics is the limiting factor at the moment. Carbon capture is one of the few universally popular solutions.
  - chillwaves 5y ago
    Isn't that the whole appeal of our economic system? To root out these inefficiencies? If it is not economically feasible to run a coal plant if they do not externalize the pollution cost, how is that my problem? And if the demand justifies it, the cost for coal-generated electricity will go up. It's a matter of priorities and resource allocation. Why do we allow coal operators to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else?
perfunctory 5y ago
> because you don't have to convince/force 7 billion people to do something. Well, at least you'll have to convince them to pay $100 per tonne captured.
- hackeraccount 5y ago
  Maybe not. Imagine what a rhinoceros is worth to someone in an Africa. It's (hypothetically making up numbers here) a car or a house or food for a year. For the right person in the US the cost of keeping that rhino alive in their backyard (or safe from poachers in a reserve in Africa) is much much more but both not an inconceivable amount to pay and not an undesirable one. The best part CO2 capture is that motivated resourced people could in theory act without the worlds cooperation. People who aren't motivated and/or resourced could choose to not act and the problem could still get solved. Currently the only way to achieve that kind of effect is to help under-resourced people to act by giving them resources. I would suggest that for a lot of reasons this is a very tricky solution.
  - perfunctory 5y ago
    For every resourced person motivated to capture co2 there will be another resourced person motivated to release it. Do we really want to find out who is gonna win the race. No matter how you spin it, we won't solve the emissions problem without politics.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

You don't need permission to pay people to install wind turbines either. What you need is money. And if you have money, and a dollar spent installing wind turbines goes further than a dollar spent extracting CO2, why are you going to spend it on the inefficient thing?

p1mrx 5y ago
A wind turbine is only profitable if you can physically connect it to someone who needs energy while the wind is blowing. That will get harder as more are built.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  At which point the most economically efficient thing becomes to install batteries or hydro or nuclear. It still isn't carbon capture, is it?
snovv_crash 5y ago
Because at some point you have enough electricity.

MaxGanzII 5y ago

CO₂ is not the only factor driving ecological damage and indeed, the mass extinction event currently in progress. There are simply too many humans for the way in which we as a species currently behave. Either we need single parent families, globally, for a few generations, to get numbers down to a sustainable level, or, we have to convince/force 7 billion people to accept and adhere to major changes in how they live their lives. CO₂ is a basically easy problem, compared to this, if it is possible to take the route of geo-engineering, because, as you say, it's not necessary to change how people behave; but I think no matter what, there is a need to change how people behave, or billions die from famine and economic failure, induced by ecological collapse. I don't think people will change (indeed, there will be large numbers of people vocally against change), I think Governments will at best effectively do nothing "(we're building lots of renewable! but we're also building lots of gas at the same time!"), or more likely make things worse ("we'll phase out coal by 2070"), so my expectation is human suffering on a scale never seen before in all human history. Humans are kākāpō; we're over-reproducing, having as they did no meaningful natural predators to keep us in check, and sooner or later, that leads to ecological collapse. (The kākāpō went through several cycles of this and evolved to reproduce very, very slowly, and so came into balance with their environment, and then were very nearly almost completely wiped out when humans arrived.)

cat_plus_plus 5y ago
Dude, its not the 50s, most of the world is under replacement rate of reproduction. The problem now is largely the opposite, shortage of young minds to invent carbon free energy grids and young hands to build them. You can cut human population by half and still have a problem of excessive carbon emissions or transition to carbon free economy and have net zero per capita emission. Also I don't want humanity to be almost completely wiped out.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  if young minds are really the limiting factor - maybe we could be doing a better job with education.
- MaxGanzII 5y ago
  I may be wrong, but I think the world population is growing more quickly than you portray, and will be for some decades yet, and we currently have far too many people for how we conduct ourselves as a species. I may also be wrong to think it, but I would expect if you halved the world population, assuming it was done equally across the world, you would indeed halve human carbon emissions; half as many people, half as many homes, cars, power stations, etc.
  - rcxdude 5y ago
    Based on current trajectories, the world's population is not going to double again (or even increase by 50%), it will level off at about 10 billion and at that point perhaps start to shrink. It's possible this level is not sustainable with an acceptable standard of living, but it's not obvious and it certainly isn't inevitable that humanity will reproduce out of control.
    - MaxGanzII 5y ago
      I would say though that this is what I'm arguing. The planet can't cope now - the environment is falling apart right now, already - and the mid-range estimate there's another two or three billion people to come over the next few decades. There are estimates in excess of this, there are estimates lower. Estimates which have population declines see slow declines only. I've not seen any real understanding of why the fertility rate is dropping, particularly in first world countries. That's a concern; what happens if the factors causing this to happen are transient? That's part of why the estimates are only estimates, of course.

civilized 5y ago

If we're going to talk insanely expensive moonshots, maybe the US should install and maintain free point-of-emission carbon capture for anyone anywhere in the world who wants it, and put the technology behind it in the public domain for anyone who doesn't want it from us. Point of emission capture is at least technologically feasible.

pkdpic 5y ago
Kind of like how some cities / states already subsidize solar panels / heat pumps / electric appliances etc. But even more like how some organizations (like PurpleAir, maybe thats the only one though?) will get you connected with the hardware necessary to be a part of their air quality monitoring network. Except this is a way more interesting idea for a lot of reasons.
Factorium 5y ago
As soon as you add that requirement to coal power plants, they become immediately uneconomic to build or operate. They are already borderline due to the fall in cost of renewables. With a meagre Carbon Tax of $15/tonne, coal costs double in the US. There's nothing that can be done to fix coal power apart from just shutting it all down.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- civilized 5y ago
  It would be great to do sane carbon policy, but politics is the limiting factor at the moment. Carbon capture is one of the few universally popular solutions.
- chillwaves 5y ago
  Isn't that the whole appeal of our economic system? To root out these inefficiencies? If it is not economically feasible to run a coal plant if they do not externalize the pollution cost, how is that my problem? And if the demand justifies it, the cost for coal-generated electricity will go up. It's a matter of priorities and resource allocation. Why do we allow coal operators to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else?

perfunctory 5y ago

> because you don't have to convince/force 7 billion people to do something. Well, at least you'll have to convince them to pay $100 per tonne captured.

hackeraccount 5y ago
Maybe not. Imagine what a rhinoceros is worth to someone in an Africa. It's (hypothetically making up numbers here) a car or a house or food for a year. For the right person in the US the cost of keeping that rhino alive in their backyard (or safe from poachers in a reserve in Africa) is much much more but both not an inconceivable amount to pay and not an undesirable one. The best part CO2 capture is that motivated resourced people could in theory act without the worlds cooperation. People who aren't motivated and/or resourced could choose to not act and the problem could still get solved. Currently the only way to achieve that kind of effect is to help under-resourced people to act by giving them resources. I would suggest that for a lot of reasons this is a very tricky solution.
- perfunctory 5y ago
  For every resourced person motivated to capture co2 there will be another resourced person motivated to release it. Do we really want to find out who is gonna win the race. No matter how you spin it, we won't solve the emissions problem without politics.