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No, carbon capture powered by fossil fuels releases less carbon than it captures. For direct air capture, it takes somewhere around 2,000 kWh to capture a ton o
by elil17 4y ago
No, carbon capture powered by fossil fuels releases less carbon than it captures. For direct air capture, it takes somewhere around 2,000 kWh to capture a ton of CO2 [1]. You can generate those 2,000 kWh using natural gas and release about 0.4 tons of CO2 (about 0.8 if you use coal). [2] You can be even more efficient by burning natural gas in the sorbent re-generator (avoiding inefficiencies of power generation and transmission).
[1]: https://www.wri.org/insights/direct-air-capture-resource-considerations-and-costs-carbon-removal https://www.wri.org/insights/direct-air-capture-resource-con...
[2]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-dioxide-emissions-factor https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-dioxide-emissions-...
- jfk13 4y agoOut of curiosity, do those figures account for the carbon released during manufacture of the carbon-capture and power-generation equipment you're using? Do they include the carbon emissions of extracting, refining, and delivering the fuels, as well as the emissions from actually using them?
- kisamoto 4y agoThere have been some detalied life-cycle analysis of certain carbon capture methods/plants. As one of the most famous (& funded), Climeworks have had a third party study published to break this down[1] [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00771-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00771-9
- elil17 4y agoThey don't, that's just my napkin math.