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Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

> it would be significantly more cost effective (thus societally beneficial) than to overhaul the entire energy production infrastructure.

Citation needed on that cost effectiveness estimate, but regardless, all infrastructure is incrementally rebuilt and replaced over the years. So instead of eventually building replacement coal [1] plants with fancy (and leaky) CC, we could as well build different plants that don't emit any CO2.

[1] or natural gas, which is what's been happening over the past 10-15 years in the US, primarily because natural gas became cheaper. Those natural gas plants produced less CO2 than coal, which has primarily driven any reduction in the US's CO2 output. But natural gas still produces huge amounts of CO2 and will never be carbon neutral.

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"Citation" of a hypothetical? Doesn't make any sense.

Thought the spirit of my comment was pretty clear, but the point was that if technology could enable continued use of fossil fuels in a net zero manner, and in a more cost efficient way than replacing energy infrastructure, that it should be welcomed.

But instead you get a lot of commenters hating on the idea because it would allow fossil fuels to live on, even if consumption of those was net zero. Which implies they don't care about solving climate change, but care specifically about destroying the fossil fuel industry.

Yes things get replaced over time and the replacement technology will end up being whatever's most economical (in a free market) or whatever's most economical given legal constraints (in a controlled market).

There's no inherent virtue of generating power from solar versus coal if you could do both in a net zero manner. Though of course, fossil fuels are limited in supply.

Getting net zero or renewables to be more cost effective than fossil fuels is the fastest way to solve the problem. That transition would happen naturally over time as fossil fuels became more scarce, thus more expensive.

I'll just point you to this [1], which describes the situation better than I can. In short, no, capture capture is not going to be net zero, and even if it were, it doesn't actually reduce air pollution.

[1] https://news.stanford.edu/2019/10/25/study-casts-doubt-carbo...

Do you understand what a hypothetical is?

> "Citation" of a hypothetical

Yes, the claim that one hypothetical option would be more efficient than another demands support, in the form of evidence, or reasoning from supported theory.

Typical citing the support and stating any necessary connecting reasoning to reach the conclusion from it is the way to provide that.

Just because you are comparing hypotheticals doesn't free the conclusion you claim from that comparison from the need for justification.

Do you understand what a hypothetical is?

> Do you understand what a hypothetical is?

Yes, do you understand that making predictive conclusions about hypothetical alternatives is itself a claim that such conclusions can be justified (which is true, that's pretty much the whole point of science) and invites a call for the justification of the particular predictive conclusion you have offered?

Clearly you don't.

The merits of carbon capture technology, obviously (very much so) have nothing to do with my comment

Consumption of fossil fuels is unsustainable even if it could be consumed as a net zero emitter. Because once used it cannot be reused.

Feels a bit like treating a symptom instead of the root cause.

Yes, and cost of fossil fuels would rise with scarcity leading a free market to slowly transition to renewables as fossil fuels became more scarce/expensive.

In the assumption that we could achieve net zero in a cost effective way with fossil fuels, this would be the most natural transition

Shifting goalposts here:

At first, you said that if any CC could achieve net-zero emissions, then it would be significantly more cost-effective than rebuilding infrastructure. Baseless assertion without any specific numbers to cite.

Now, you're saying that if any CC could be net-zero and more cost-effective, then it should be welcomed. Well, yes, obviously.

Not sure what you mean by shifting goal posts.

I posed an entirely hypothetical proposition that, if this technology could achieve net zero emissions in a more efficient manner (obviously implied), that there would still be many people who hate on it because it would enable fossil fuels to live on, despite the fact that, in that scenario, we would have solved climate change and allows fossil fuels to continue to prosper.

The fact that the technology would be more cost effective was obviously implied. Is it logical that I would imply that a less cost effective technology would be cheaper? No, so why interpret it that way? Does the syntax of what somebody writes always 100% accurately convey their thoughts? No, but its pretty easy for humans to interpret the meaning.

Anyway, I edited the comment for clarity. All the replies debating carbon capture technology have pretty obviously nothing to do with my original comment, and I question how somebody could interpret it in that way. The entire preposition and thrust of the comment was about the hypothetical, nothing to do with specific merits of a technology (very clearly, and obviously)

So your desired message was a double hypothetical straw man attack?

You're suggesting that hypothetically if these technologies were viable, then hypothetically people would still oppose them, because you want to suggest they're acting in bad faith and secretly have an ulterior anti-fossil-fuel agenda separate from emissions.

Surely you can see how people are going to counter one or both of those elements though, right? (The technology so far appears to be mostly a distraction from more prudent efforts and 99.999% of people would in fact love and support the technology if it worked).

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