Let's imagine that you have a brilliant idea of removing all of the excess CO2 from our planet, and all you need to do is implement that idea to fix our problem

Let's imagine that you have a brilliant idea of removing all of the excess CO2 from our planet, and all you need to do is implement that idea to fix our problems with the climate. - Food you ate to power your brain - CO2+ - Computer, Electricity, and the internet you used to research your idea further - CO2+ - Any phone calls, emails, chats with people that can help you implement your idea, fund your business, etc. - CO2+ - Opening business, paying all of the fees, opening bank accounts - CO2+ - Hiring people, renting offices, furnishing these offices with desks, computers, coffee makers, water coolers - CO2+ Now, after quite a lot of CO2+ work, you're ready to... start designing your CO2 sequestration plant. - All CAD work, servers, electricity for light, internet, travel for you and your employees from home to work and back - all of that is still generating CO2 - CO2+ - All of the components you need to build that plant need to be first mined and shipped to your vendors - CO2+ - All of your vendors will have to build these widgets you need for your plant - CO2+ - All of that will have to be shipped to you, most likely be ship or air, and of course by cars. - C02+ - All tools like wrenches, soldering irons, and screwdrivers also need to be made and shipped to you - it all generates CO2 before your employees can start using it. Now you're ready. You can start building your plant. - You will need a lot of concrete - CO+ - You will need a lot of steel - CO+ -You will need a lot of copper, aluminum, and many more .. all of it is still CO+ In the meantime, your employees need to get to work every day, and they need their coffee. They need their lunches, internet, and electricity. You and your employees will travel a lot to do a lot of "businessy" things.. all of that requires energy, which generates CO2, and only a tiny fraction of it can use "clean" energy. After a few months or most likely years, you have your CO2 removal plant ready. Yay... In that time, your idea generated tons and tons of CO2 and paper, organic(food, coffee, etc.), and electronic waste. Now you have a grand opening, the plant begins operations, and you can start removing all of that CO2, your "simple and eco-friendly idea," from the atmosphere. Is it all good, right? You will remove all of that CO2 in no time, and soon after, start removing CO2 other people generate. But wait. You need to operate this plant. - maintain it by ordering new parts and replacing whatever breaks - CO2+ - employ people to run the plant. They need to travel to that plant, and they need to communicate, use computers, the internet, etc. - CO2+ - They need to get paid, so you need to start making money or beg for money from nonprofits or governments. All of that begging is best-done face to face, so you will have to fly all over the world - CO2 - roads to your "not so new anymore" plant needs maintaining - CO2+ - these computers your employees use get old, and your employees demand better company phones and new espresso machines. - CO+ - that free, safe, and CO2-negative geothermal energy your plant uses also needs to be maintained, and since your plant uses a lot of that energy, part of that CO2 this maintenance requires is added to your balance. So that was my original question - when you consider all of the CO2 that these CO2 removal plants generate before they are even operational and all of the CO2 they generate during operation, how long before they are CO2 negative? My guess is never. All these "environmental" projects do is transfer billions of dollars from taxpayers to business owners. That's not how you fix the environment. That's how you destroy it.