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Why sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere can’t undo all the effects of climate change
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Is it even possible to suck enough co2 out of the atmosphere? After all, these are not small quantities we are talking about here. Is the technology to accomplish such a task advanced enough? And are the necessary devices available in sufficient quantities? Or are we talking more about unlaid eggs here?
No, because of entropy. We got the energy out by burning and letting carbon free, but to reverse that process takes a lot more energy than we got out. And the energy used would need to be zero carbon.
We're talking about unlaid eggs here because the fossil fuels industry wants people to think that some future removal will somehow make things ok. This paper makes it clear that even if their dreams are realized, it doesn't put things back the way they were.
We can't suck enough CO2 out of the air fast enough to outpace the rate we're producing it, by an insane margin. I think it's important to advance these technologies because we're going to have to fix it eventually, but we can't look at it like it will save us from ourselves, more like sweeping up the ashes after the fire has burned everything up. What's worse is that energy companies would love to point at carbon capture and say you may as well stop caring, we fixed it.
We need to reduce our emissions down to near zero before capture technologies can have a chance of making a difference. There's a lot we can do in that regard but it's going to be expensive and require government mandate.
There are some passive carbon capture ideas that are emerging that may help, such as carbon negative concrete or restorative agriculture, sequestration like this can only do so much but they'll make a big dent.
Renewable natural gas can be carbon negative, the biggest issue i have with existing RNG reactors is that they're cutting down trees to make the biomass needed, which entirely defeats the purpose. If they use the parts of plants we don't eat from agriculture(like stalks and leaves and stuff) we can get basically free energy, prevent methane from getting released on decay, and still have carbonaceous material left over that can fertilize the ground. Unfortunately, historical biomass plants need to make profits so they aggressivly take it from the land. They CAN be beneficial, but usually they are not.
I've seen an idea of using vast amounts of calcium and dumping it into the ocean which should help with acidification and pull CO2 out of the ocean creating calcium carbonate, essentially atrificial sea shells. Reducing the CO2 in the oceans would sink the CO2 out of the atmosphere as well. I have no idea where all this calcium is supposed to come from and unless someone can make money off the output (Tum's are you listening?) I have my doubts about this ever getting off the ground.
Really we need to be focused on eliminating emissions but eventually we'll need to start reversing the damage, the research for this should continue but not be counted on as a solution but as cleanup after we stop the bleeding.