The USA does 5903 million metric tons of co2 annually [1]
You’d need 1.5 million of these to remove just the USA’s yearly co2 emissions.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas...
You’d need 1.5 million of these to remove just the USA’s yearly co2 emissions.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas...
On the other hand, if this amount doubled every year, it would equal total US CO2 production in 21 years, total global CO2 production in 27 years.
Agree with the other comments that preventing emissions in the first place is far more efficient. Also, I think that CO2 removal is now included in many climate change models, so the benefit might not be too great.
This tells more about the ridiculous progression of exponential functions than about the efficiency of this process.
So can we make the machines that make the carbon out of the carbon that the machines capture?
However, it might seem like a portion of the solution, at least one worth exploring (which seems like the point of this), for a small country with abundant free energy to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement. So, essentially, the Paris Agreement has created enough of a market for this technology to be worth further development and fielding, and that seems like a good thing.