Carbon removal hype is becoming a dangerous distraction

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/08/1027908/carbon-removal-hype-is-a-dangerous-distraction-climate-change/

by headalgorithm • 5 years ago

76 92 5 years ago

Fnoord• 5 years ago

In February, oil giant Shell trumpeted a scenario in which the world pulls global warming back to 1.5 ˚C by 2100

Which was deemed not enough. Shell lost its lawsuit in May 2021; In A Landmark Case, A Dutch Court Orders Shell To Cut Its Carbon Emissions Faster [1]

[1] https://text.npr.org/1000475878

mhandley• 5 years ago

The Royal Society report on greenhouse gas removal is pretty good. https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/greenhouse-...

It's not that greenhouse gas removal cannot be done, but as the article says, it cannot distract from emissions reduction, and it's going to require a huge effort. But we probably require both emissions reduction and greenhouse gas removal.

adamsvystun• 5 years ago

While the title of the article is easy enough to understand, and articulates a genuine concern, the article itself is pretty incoherent.

It does not establish clearly why carbon removal is not effective at slowing climate change, while assuming it isn't.

It critisizes as inefficient the early investing strategy to cast a wide net and give money to potentially failing ideas.

It in one place mentions that climate capture cannot "be easily scaled up" because it is "prohibitively expensive and energy intensive", while in the other part it concedes that the technology might progress in the future.

The entire article is laced with emotional contempt of technology and progress, and does little to help you understand the reasons of why you should be concerned with the problem it tries to present.

Retric4• 5 years ago

The technology isn’t even close to dealing with the scale of the problem, but sadly that’s not the primary issue.

The US, China, India, Russia, etc are unwilling to pay for significantly accelerated reductions in CO2 emissions even when directly economically beneficial. Carbon capture isn’t free and frankly nobody is willing to pay for it.

phkahler• 5 years ago

> The US, China, India, Russia, etc are unwilling to pay for significantly accelerated reductions in CO2 emissions even when directly economically beneficial

How is it "directly economically beneficial"?

ajross2• 5 years ago

There's a real argument to be made there at the level of federal policy, but note that the US is at or near the top of the list in per-capita wind/solar/hydro and that it dominates world battery vehicle technology and production (though not yet deployment domestically).

There's a real schizophrenia problem politicly, and it's worth discussing. But really, americans are your allies here, and the US is doing a ton more help than harm.

Cthulhu_2• 5 years ago

It isn't because of scale. Producing CO2 emissions is easy, capturing it will require an equal amount of capturing capacity. Unless we invent something that can scale up to capture 100% of current emissions (or even just 10%), reducing CO2 emissions will remain more economically viable.

The other problem is of course that if we can capture co2, the producers will just ramp up production. Compare with electricity production; if production goes up, cost goes down, consumption increases (because cheaper) and they will have to ramp production up again.

unchocked3• 5 years ago

What’s dangerous is attacking any idea that attempts to manage climate risks in light of humanity’s continuing use of carbon fuels.

The anthropocene is as it is, not as it should be. Emissions reduction, carbon removal, and solar radiation management are all important tools in managing the world we’ve made.

The sooner our cultural narrative expands to accept consequential responsibility, the better.

(Article is better than the headline)

bko2• 5 years ago

I don't understand the opposition of carbon capture. Carbon in the environment seems like a technical problem with a technical solution. What's the alternative? Try to convince every nation in the world to make their citizens poorer by forcing them to adopt more expensive energy sources and eventually forcibly limit population growth? Even the most lofty treaties and proposals admit to not being enough, so why do we persist with chasing ever more draconian controls over what people can do?

rcMgD2BwE72F7• 5 years ago

Carbon in the environment seems like a technical problem

Is it? The problem isn't that there's carbon in the atmosphere but we keeping adding more even though it's making it inhabitable.

Is too much alcohol in my blood a technical problem or a drinking problem. Someone drunk should stop drinking alcohol in the first place (admit that's a behavior of behavior) instead of finding ways to remove alcohol from their system.

spaetzleesser3• 5 years ago

To me carbon removal is just a PR tool by interested parties who don’t want to reduce emissions. I haven’t seen any approach that even remotely can be scaled to a level where it would make a difference. I think it’s a distraction that’s designed to prevent meaningful action. Pretty much the same as the fast food industry sponsoring health education initiatives that tell people junk food is ok.

hebrox• 5 years ago

For me the problem is that if you focus only on one part of the entire problem, you will never fix it. You can do carbon capturing at a NG plant, but what about all the leaks [1]? Lowering CO2 emissions, will lower all kinds of emissions, so that should be the focus.

[1] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c00437

pjc505• 5 years ago

Can carbon capture ever be cheaper than not emitting the carbon in the first place? That's the critical question.

Also, if the companies and countries profiting from carbon extraction from the ground aren't the ones paying for it to be extracted from the atmosphere, you've got a massive transfer of wealth happening there. Should the US be paying for the Saudi royal family to get richer?

adrianN6• 5 years ago

Renewables are not more expensive. They are a lot cheaper if you account for the externalities.

A carbon price, with border adjustments for im- and exports would be an effective way to let the invisible hand convince every nation to become net neutral.

AtlasBarfed• 5 years ago

When it comes to the fossil fuel companies, my objection to their carbon capture is manifold.

Clean coal has always been a sham, so I don't have faith in their schemes for scrubbing carbon. These companies have shown no real appetite for actually fixing the problems they created, and a near infinite appetite for juking the stats.

As an example, they always block any semi-reasonable economic systems for carbon taxation and pricing externalities which would be extremely effective at fixing the problem from a consumer demand perspective and pricing in mitigations for petroleum use.

Their sequestration seems largely about pumping CO2 into the ground. I'm not a geologist, and I can't speak to how effective that is at keeping gas from leaking back to the surface, but stories about fracking ruining the water in large areas due to _gasses_ coming up from the ground don't give me faith. Maybe the strategy is to shove enough CO2 around mineral strata like olivine that eventually absorb it but the entire process sounds like it is rife for abuse: oil company SAYS it shoved it down there, SAYS it will stay there, just to get whatever capture credit. Do they actually care if their carbon gets in the air? Historically the answer is absolutely not.

And the article is right, bad science reporting in the press will misrepresent the problems and solutions, like they have for, oh, since the press has ever existed for science in general and 70 years specifically for oil/gas/global warming/the environment.

Nations DON'T have to be poorer. Alternative energy is cheaper than coal, and last I checked was on even par with natural gas turbine, and soon new alternative energy will be cheaper than already-installed gas plants, an important milestone that means the electric companies will actively try to shutter since replacing them saves them money.

The BEV will drop under ICE drivetrain cost very very soon. It probably has already, but the design cycle of cars using those technologies is probably on a 2-5 year delay from showing up in the marketplace.

So the third world's transportation and energy infrastructure will be largely decarbonized. I think that's about 50-60% of emissions in the emissions pile.

Your argument seems to boil down to "make solving the problem by means other than carbon capture seem impossible or repressive". I disagree.

shmel• 5 years ago

It is a good tech to have, however most people see it as an easy way out "oh, we'll just scale up carbon capture and I don't have to give up my car and AC". I am highly skeptical that any remotely complicated technology can be scaled enough to counteract massive amounts of fossil fuel burned daily. We burn millions of barrels of oil every day. If you want to solve it via carbon capture, you need to extract it on a similar scale. Have you every heard anyone complaining that they extract so much carbon, they need space to store it? No. That is because we extract miniscule amounts compared to fossil fuels we burn.

rasz• 5 years ago

How did recycling plastics work out?

rcMgD2BwE72F7• 5 years ago

Any investment in carbon removal could be invested instead in ways that prevent carbon emissions in the first place (renewable, EV...). All the CO2 emitted today (even if removed later) will increasingly contribute to climate change due to the many and enormous positive feedback loops[0] at play (esp. thawing permafrost).

Why not save as much CO2 as possible now and, when we can't do more (e.g long-term shortage of batteries), fully invest in carbon removal programs?

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback#Positi...

kisamoto• 5 years ago

I agree but also these things take time and removal and reductions are not mutually exclusive.

Personally I think that development of both in parallel is what can bring the most success.

We covert to an emissionless society in the future and use carbon removal as the net-zero emissions bridge during the transition phase.

naasking• 5 years ago

Why not save as much CO2 as possible now and, when we can't do more (e.g long-term shortage of batteries), fully invest in carbon removal programs?

Because carbon removal tech at scale needs to be ready at that point, and it won't be if it doesn't get investment now. I agree it shouldn't get as much attention as displacing carbon sources, but it still needs research investment.

ArkanExplorer• 5 years ago

Have a look at the chemical composition of crude oil:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Composition

Its already 83% carbon by weight, and already in the ground, and already liquid.

Its impossible to do any better than that! CO2 is only 27% carbon by weight.

voisin• 5 years ago

No one wants to change things for them short term worse, even if this is necessary for the long term. Do it becomes a very compelling story to tell people they don’t have to change because we’ll just capture and sequester. But even if this were a feasible strategy, it would just lead to further growth in emissions to offset the capture.

swiley• 5 years ago

Measuring the damage and attaching a price to it is probably the easiest way to ensure everything balances out. That includes a price for Co2 removal.

Cthulhu_2• 5 years ago

I did hear they other day they're finally increasing the cost of emission rights whilst lowering the amount of emissions in the "quota". There's probably a lot of trickery and cheating happening in that area though, like Tesla selling its emissions rights for a billion dollar because they don't have emissions themselves.

Armisael162• 5 years ago

Tesla selling right isn’t trickery or cheating. It’s intended - it’s a way to shovel money low-carbon companies so they can develop. Tesla would be long-since bankrupt with that income stream.

dcolkitt• 5 years ago

The best strategy is to use stratospheric aerosol injections to stabilize temperatures over the next 50-100 years until carbon capture is ready to scale.

The problem with carbon capture is the high energy cost. So you need a source of cheap, abundant energy. Obviously the energy source itself can’t emit carbon. That most likely looks like fusion when we finally crack it circa 2100.

Until stratospheric aerosols are highly effective, dirt cheap and require very little energy. We absolutely know they work from historical volcano events. The only downside is they need to be constantly refreshed every year because they dissipate over time. So they’re a medium-term, not a long-term solution. But that buys us enough time to really get carbon capture right.

JulianMorrison• 5 years ago

Temperatures aren't the only problem. So is ocean acidification, and that depends directly on carbon dioxide.

techdragon• 5 years ago

The issue is they are a massive global project that requires the same sorts of measurement ambiguity that lets people argue over anthropogenic climate change in the first place. I’m not going to argue the physics, because you’re right about it being a good strategy for all the reasons you mentioned… but unfortunately this is a worse is better scenario.

Direct methods that produce measurable byproducts that can be used to directly quantify how much CO2 has been removed, are macroeconomically speaking, going to be easier to find backers for both financially and politically. Without those backers nothing will happen with any large scale climate change mitigation efforts.

112358132134552• 5 years ago

The best strategy is to place environment at the top priority, to breakdown capitalism and the frenesy for consumption, money, products. It's not idealism/utopism, I've been living since 10 years somewhat far from the modern lifestyle (except my laptop), I use a bike, and eat local fruits and legumes, or markets vegetables left/wasted at the end, I go to supermarket once or twice a year to buy soap bars and rice/quinoa, that's all. This guy is also a good inspiration https://www.robgreenfield.org/. It takes time, but it's easy to do the switch, governments/countries need to stop behaving like financial companies, we need to have public fruit trees and on the other side reduce the useless services and jobs (luxury, tourism, ..), remove intermediates, promote local food (avoid industrial collecting non-ripe fruits, and wasting ripe ones, ..), so many simple, logical things. Just reducing the use of cars will make people change their lifestyle for the better (both them and environment)

That is I think the solution, not a rocket science solution that tries to find yet another industrial way to depollute one of pollutants (and probably worsen the case for others and the overall balance), just a natural solution. As soon as people have a environment footprint much lower, like mine, it's like the total population is divided by 2 or more

corty10• 5 years ago

Well, that is basically the "back to the stone age" strategy. While I applaud your efforts, I don't think that this would gain any traction in a sufficient part of the population.

dsign• 5 years ago

It seems the only sector that can't be decarbonized radically are transport and agriculture, mostly because airplanes and freight transport. That leaves us about 30% of carbon emissions today[1]. According to those numbers, carbon capture is going to be needed, but nowhere with the same priority than clean energy.

A high-priority item for the environment is simply education, since voters are pushing strongly against clean energy ("wind turbines kill birds", "nuclear plants go Chernobyl", "electric cars are expensive|auto-update like Windows and brick on you|have no turbo", "batteries are worse for the environment than fossil fuels").

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

rcMgD2BwE72F7• 5 years ago

It seems the only sector that can't be decarbonized radically are transport and agriculture

Agriculture can significantly be decarbonized if we stop eating meat (or radically reduce consumption)[0]. It would also significantly help with biodiversity loss, which is becoming a bigger and more pressing issue than climate change.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p... [1] https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2021-06/20210609_works...

carry_bit• 5 years ago

It's not carbon emissions that are directly the problem, but rather the emission of fossil carbon into the biosphere. Hydrocarbon fuels and the like can be produced from carbon already in the biosphere.

jtr1• 5 years ago

A high-priority item for the environment is simply education, since voters are pushing strongly against clean energy ("wind turbines kill birds", "nuclear plants go Chernobyl", "electric cars are expensive|auto-update like Windows and brick on you|have no turbo", "batteries are worse for the environment than fossil fuels").

Lack of media representation seems like a widely under-attacked problem. Look at the number adults who say they hear about climate change in the media at least once a week, the numbers are abysmal: https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/yc...

gpvos• 5 years ago

Which parts of agriculture cannot stop using fossil fuels? As for transport, the only thing that cannot run on (hopefully green) electricity using current technology is long-haul flights, which frankly we can do without; just go back to using ships and use videoconferencing for the rest.

pjc505• 5 years ago

CO2-to-jetfuel is possible. CO2 and agriculture tends to be a matter of accounting; cows emit methane, as do a lot of decay processes. From a practical point of view farmers who are on subsidized diesel already will probably be the last to change.

Nitrogen fertilizer can be made renewably. The nonrenewability of phosphorous and potassium deposits may be more of a problem.

pjc505• 5 years ago

simply education, since voters are pushing strongly against clean energy

This isn't a matter of education, it's a matter of duelling propaganda systems. You can't just dismiss the problems, they have to be presented in a balanced context along with solutions.

"wind turbines kill birds"

True but needs the massive qualifier that this isn't a big impact on bird populations compared to habitat loss, domestic cats and even glass buildings.

"nuclear plants go Chernobyl"

True? Needs the qualifier that, apart from the people in the immediate area, and farmers in Europe who had to destroy produce, the effect wasn't too bad comparatively.

"electric cars are expensive|auto-update like Windows and brick on you"

The first is true, hence subsidies in much of the west. For high mileage they are cheaper to run. The second is true for Tesla, but I can see it being expanded even to petrol cars; something of a separate issue.

"batteries are worse for the environment than fossil fuels").

This one is probably false.

Unklejoe2• 5 years ago

I always assumed carbon capture was a hard requirement for a sustainable future, as long as there are some things that can't be run off of renewables.

Plus, even if the world dropped its co2 output to pre-industrial revolution levels, wouldn't we still have to capture carbon to reverse the damage already done? Or is there some natural process which will slowly bring co2 levels back to some equilibrium level?

corty10• 5 years ago

CO₂ will react with certain minerals (like Olivine) over time. Also, when CO₂ is dissolved in the ocean, it will form an acid that reacts with lime. So there will be an equilibrium again, but it will take quite some time.

However, especially Olivine is also thought to be useful for the same reason as above, to be used in climate control efforts: Just mine it, crush it and spread it over a large area to cheaply capture more CO₂ more quickly, and bring that equilibrium lower and sooner: https://climatecleanup.org/olivine/

AnimalMuppet• 5 years ago

Yes, but...

Under current circumstances, mining, crushing, and spreading over a large area all take power, which comes from fossil fuel. Can this (olivine) be done in a carbon-negative way, with all elements of the process accounted for?

jasonlaramburu3• 5 years ago

Or is there some natural process which will slowly bring co2 levels back to some equilibrium level?

It would take hundreds of years

throwaway49274• 5 years ago

I don’t understand why the intellectual narrative is “CO2 reduction at ANY cost… as long as we’re not wasting money on those expensive nuclear power plants”

dfilppi• 5 years ago

Using nuclear energy doesnt require the overthrow of capitalism.

sandworm1012• 5 years ago

I'm worried that legitimate schemes are being lost in this movement to declare carbon capture as a distraction. Coal companies talking about carbon sequestration, pumping their exhaust back underground, is definitely a distraction. But some of the fuel-from-air initiatives are not.

If we can use electricity to generate hydrocarbons from water and atmospheric CO2 then we can revolutionize transport without relying on batteries. Fuel made from air could be used just like any other hydrocarbon. It isn't economical yet, but that doesn't mean it is a delay tactic. Such schemes offer actual practical answers.

nradov2• 5 years ago

Yes this appears to be the only practical answer for long distance marine and air transport. We're not going to be flying battery powered airliners from New York to London.

sandworm1012• 5 years ago

People are talking about hydrogen-powered aircraft. For all the effort needed to compress/liquify/store hydrogen, it has to be cheaper to make diesel out of CO2+Water.

uniqueuid2• 5 years ago

The book "The Wizard and the Prophet" (highly recommended, by Charles Mann) argues that this is essentially a battle between faith in technology to become more efficient and the nature-preserving belief that we need to reduce our footprint.

The battle has been going on for centuries regarding the limits of population capacity, energy, water and food. We have broken many previously credible thresholds and managed to get to 11 billion people thanks to technology.

I don't think following only one or only the other strategy is something that's possible in diverse societies. We will continue to wage this battle, with technological advances bringing breakthroughs (such as the invention of fertilizers or climate-robust seeds), but with ever starker warnings from conservators.

The book helped me realize how many debates are rooted in this schism, deep down, and how fundamental it is.

bigbillheck• 5 years ago

managed to get to 11 billion people thanks to technology.

Did we get an extra 3.5 billion people when I wasn't looking?

uniqueuid2• 5 years ago

Whoops, confused actual population with the expected maximum carrying capacity in the book. Sorry.

_y5hn• 5 years ago

There are interesting research out there if one searches for it though. This one already sucks CO2 out from the atmosphere:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-07/deep-sea...

This fantastical sea creature helps remove planet-warming gases from the atmosphere

"He and fellow researchers eventually learned that these creatures and their snot palaces play an outsize role in helping the ocean remove planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — one more part of a vast and underappreciated system that makes the ocean an unsung hero of climate change. Covering more than 70% of Earth’s surface, the ocean has absorbed more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide released by humans since the Industrial Revolution, and about 90% of the resulting heat."

This one too: https://www.projectvesta.org/

If trees just burn up, they may not be immediately useful. The tools need to be controllable and expenditure minimal.

I'd be the last to recommend geo-engineering, but it may be correct humanity already started by releasing so much extra CO2 the past hundred years.

Carbon removal hype is becoming a dangerous distraction

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