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Al Gore gave a TED talk about this just a few days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgZC6da4mco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgZC6da4mco (What the Fossil

Al Gore gave a TED talk about this just a few days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgZC6da4mco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgZC6da4mco (What the Fossil Fuel Industry Doesn't Want You To Know) He says the same thing, with receipts. All these carbon capture things are just fossil fuel companies extending their lifetime. They spend X million on "solving" carbon capture while spending 2*X million telling people how hard they're working on solving carbon capture. This has been going on for decades with very very minimal progress. But the fossil fuel companies like to tout how they will increase their carbon capture by 500% by 2030. They do not mention how that increase brings them from 0.01% of their total carbon output to 0.05% in 10 years.

nelox 3y ago
Yep, the CO2 pumped into the well is to simply improve extraction of the existing resource.
nvm0n2 3y ago
> All these carbon capture things are just fossil fuel companies extending their lifetime Aren't most of them startups? The point of the article is that this is the first time an oil company is doing it (and they're doing it to inject into fields, not for climate reasons). If Gore is really claiming all carbon capture projects are by oil firms then surely he is lying.
- TheSpiceIsLife 3y ago
  The propaganda works: they've made at least some people believe spending their own and other people's money on carbon capture is a good idea.
- hannob 3y ago
  No. You're probably confusing carbon capture in general (which already exists in some quantities, although still small to what would be meaningful) with DAC. For the latter, Climeworks is kinda the leader, which is an independent startup. But even there, there's also carbon engineering, which is funded and owned by oil corps. (You may still call that a startup in the sense that it's a relatively young company trying something new, but well...) But for carbon capture in general, all the large players are fossil fuel corps. Equinor in Norway, Shell in Canada, etc., all big oil. The only meaningful player that is not fossil fuel associated is Carbfix in Iceland.
  - NooneAtAll3 3y ago
    what's DAC?
    - letharion 3y ago
      Direct air capture, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_air_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_air_capture In this context, DAC is the alternative to capturing carbon where you produce it, such as in a Coal power plants chimney.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    > You're probably confusing carbon capture in general (which already exists in some quantities, although still small to what would be meaningful) with DAC. If so, it's the person who posted the Al Gore talk that's confusing it, not the responder who assumed the Gore talk was about DAC, the original post. IOW, someone did a bait & switch and folks who keep trying to talk about DAC are "confused".
sgt 3y ago
Why can't we have Al Gore as president, again?
- 0xDEF 3y ago
  Al Gore strikes me as one of the many boring centrist politicians we have been electing here in Denmark for the past 60 years. Obviously that means he has no chance in the US.
  - medler 3y ago
    I mean he did win the popular vote when he ran for president. And likely would have won the electoral college if all valid votes had been counted.
    - bmer 3y ago
      So...why weren't all the votes counted???
      - matt-attack 3y ago
        Two words: hanging chads
        usefulcat 3y ago
        That was part of it. Another part was that some Floridian voters were illegally denied the right to vote because their names happened to be the same or similar to names on a (poorly maintained, IIRC) list of convicted felons. The privately owned company in charge of maintaining said list was aligned with the Republican party, and most of the felons were African American. Edit: that may sound like a small number of votes, but in such a close election even a small number can make a huge difference.
        bmer 3y ago
        Why is a private company in charge of maintaining this list, versus the state police, or a federal agency in charge of census keeping?
leereeves 3y ago
Gore said in that talk that a number of countries are still increasing their production of fossil fuels. There's nothing we can do, short of war, to force other countries to stop releasing CO2, so it seems to me that carbon capture is the only solution. As the article says, "That fight of leave it in the ground we're not going to win." The top comment makes effective carbon capture sound impossible, but to put it in perspective, the Interstate Highway System in the US alone used "enough [aggregates] to make 700 mounds the size of the largest Egyptian pyramids."[1] If the numbers here are right, carbon capture would be (very) roughly 2x the size of the IHS, compressed into a single year, and repeated every year. An enormous project, but spread out across many willing nations, and perhaps helped by the fact that CO2 diffuses naturally through the atmosphere and doesn't have to be transported like sand and gravel. Difficult but doable, if the political will existed. 1: https://highways.dot.gov/highway-history/interstate-system/50th-anniversary/size-job https://highways.dot.gov/highway-history/interstate-system/5...
- diogenes4 3y ago
  > There's nothing we can do, short of war, to force other countries to stop releasing CO2 Well forcing ultimately ends in forcing violently, so this seems to be a bit tautological. We (and other wealthy nations) can directly subsidize the replacement of carbon emitting processes to the extent possible with the agreement not to build more. This won't happen of course, but the idea that the only way forward is to force people is ridiculous.
- kuhewa 3y ago
  > but spread out across many willing nations Right after you just wrote off international cooperation to reduce emissions?
  - leereeves 3y ago
    We don't have to convince every nation to contribute to carbon capture. OTOH, reducing emissions demands cooperation from everyone.
    - 3y ago
darepublic 3y ago
What if we injected the carbon back into the earth
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  What if we vent the carbon into space

nelox 3y ago

Yep, the CO2 pumped into the well is to simply improve extraction of the existing resource.

nvm0n2 3y ago

> All these carbon capture things are just fossil fuel companies extending their lifetime Aren't most of them startups? The point of the article is that this is the first time an oil company is doing it (and they're doing it to inject into fields, not for climate reasons). If Gore is really claiming all carbon capture projects are by oil firms then surely he is lying.

TheSpiceIsLife 3y ago
The propaganda works: they've made at least some people believe spending their own and other people's money on carbon capture is a good idea.
hannob 3y ago
No. You're probably confusing carbon capture in general (which already exists in some quantities, although still small to what would be meaningful) with DAC. For the latter, Climeworks is kinda the leader, which is an independent startup. But even there, there's also carbon engineering, which is funded and owned by oil corps. (You may still call that a startup in the sense that it's a relatively young company trying something new, but well...) But for carbon capture in general, all the large players are fossil fuel corps. Equinor in Norway, Shell in Canada, etc., all big oil. The only meaningful player that is not fossil fuel associated is Carbfix in Iceland.
- NooneAtAll3 3y ago
  what's DAC?
  - letharion 3y ago
    Direct air capture, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_air_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_air_capture In this context, DAC is the alternative to capturing carbon where you produce it, such as in a Coal power plants chimney.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  > You're probably confusing carbon capture in general (which already exists in some quantities, although still small to what would be meaningful) with DAC. If so, it's the person who posted the Al Gore talk that's confusing it, not the responder who assumed the Gore talk was about DAC, the original post. IOW, someone did a bait & switch and folks who keep trying to talk about DAC are "confused".

sgt 3y ago

Why can't we have Al Gore as president, again?

0xDEF 3y ago
Al Gore strikes me as one of the many boring centrist politicians we have been electing here in Denmark for the past 60 years. Obviously that means he has no chance in the US.
- medler 3y ago
  I mean he did win the popular vote when he ran for president. And likely would have won the electoral college if all valid votes had been counted.
  - bmer 3y ago
    So...why weren't all the votes counted???
    - matt-attack 3y ago
      Two words: hanging chads
      - usefulcat 3y ago
        That was part of it. Another part was that some Floridian voters were illegally denied the right to vote because their names happened to be the same or similar to names on a (poorly maintained, IIRC) list of convicted felons. The privately owned company in charge of maintaining said list was aligned with the Republican party, and most of the felons were African American. Edit: that may sound like a small number of votes, but in such a close election even a small number can make a huge difference.
        bmer 3y ago
        Why is a private company in charge of maintaining this list, versus the state police, or a federal agency in charge of census keeping?

leereeves 3y ago

Gore said in that talk that a number of countries are still increasing their production of fossil fuels. There's nothing we can do, short of war, to force other countries to stop releasing CO2, so it seems to me that carbon capture is the only solution. As the article says, "That fight of leave it in the ground we're not going to win." The top comment makes effective carbon capture sound impossible, but to put it in perspective, the Interstate Highway System in the US alone used "enough [aggregates] to make 700 mounds the size of the largest Egyptian pyramids."[1] If the numbers here are right, carbon capture would be (very) roughly 2x the size of the IHS, compressed into a single year, and repeated every year. An enormous project, but spread out across many willing nations, and perhaps helped by the fact that CO2 diffuses naturally through the atmosphere and doesn't have to be transported like sand and gravel. Difficult but doable, if the political will existed. 1: https://highways.dot.gov/highway-history/interstate-system/50th-anniversary/size-job https://highways.dot.gov/highway-history/interstate-system/5...

diogenes4 3y ago
> There's nothing we can do, short of war, to force other countries to stop releasing CO2 Well forcing ultimately ends in forcing violently, so this seems to be a bit tautological. We (and other wealthy nations) can directly subsidize the replacement of carbon emitting processes to the extent possible with the agreement not to build more. This won't happen of course, but the idea that the only way forward is to force people is ridiculous.
kuhewa 3y ago
> but spread out across many willing nations Right after you just wrote off international cooperation to reduce emissions?
- leereeves 3y ago
  We don't have to convince every nation to contribute to carbon capture. OTOH, reducing emissions demands cooperation from everyone.
  - 3y ago

darepublic 3y ago

What if we injected the carbon back into the earth

I_Am_Nous 3y ago
What if we vent the carbon into space