It shouldn't take that long, probably not even a year. It's basically 80 shipping containers filled with fans.
All the way down to the minerals being extracted from the earth. Nobody thinks about this... which is why we have all these smug EV drivers everywhere thinking they are net zero emissions.
Mining is dirty. Transporting raw material, smelting, transporting, forging, transporting, forming/shaping/fabricating/transporting again, etc... finally moving the finished products to the destination for final installation.
Nothing is "carbon neutral". It's a made up term to make people feel good about themselves.
That's pretty false on it's face. Some building products, like cellulose insulation and cork are actually carbon negative.
Even among carbon positive products, some are much less CO2 intensive over their lifetimes than others. EVs have far lower lifetime emissions than ICEs even if they have slightly higher embodied CO2 of production [1], and EVs can be dispatched to only charge using renewables, thereby reducing lifetime emissions even more.
1. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l...
Hint, it's not carbon neutral.
We are going to build no matter what, just like we are going to eat. It's pointless to argue that nothing is carbon neutral when some ways of living have significantly lower carbon intensity than others.
Therefore it makes sense (assuming one takes climate change seriously) to go about our lives in the least carbon intensive ways that are possible for us economically.
So for someone who it works for practically, an EV can result in much lower lifetime CO2 emissions than an ICE, and using cork or similarly low CO2 insulation can result in lower lifetime CO2 than using fiberglass.
How do you think they calculate the CO2eq's that went into producing this stuff? What did you think I was talking about? It uses heat from the earth, it'll be CO2-neutral pretty soon and after that it'll be CO2-positive!
- Food you ate to power your brain - CO2+
- Computer, Electricity, and the internet you used to research your idea further - CO2+
- Any phone calls, emails, chats with people that can help you implement your idea, fund your business, etc. - CO2+
- Opening business, paying all of the fees, opening bank accounts - CO2+
- Hiring people, renting offices, furnishing these offices with desks, computers, coffee makers, water coolers - CO2+
Now, after quite a lot of CO2+ work, you're ready to... start designing your CO2 sequestration plant.
- All CAD work, servers, electricity for light, internet, travel for you and your employees from home to work and back - all of that is still generating CO2 - CO2+
- All of the components you need to build that plant need to be first mined and shipped to your vendors - CO2+
- All of your vendors will have to build these widgets you need for your plant - CO2+
- All of that will have to be shipped to you, most likely be ship or air, and of course by cars. - C02+
- All tools like wrenches, soldering irons, and screwdrivers also need to be made and shipped to you - it all generates CO2 before your employees can start using it.
Now you're ready. You can start building your plant.
- You will need a lot of concrete - CO+
- You will need a lot of steel - CO+
-You will need a lot of copper, aluminum, and many more .. all of it is still CO+
In the meantime, your employees need to get to work every day, and they need their coffee. They need their lunches, internet, and electricity. You and your employees will travel a lot to do a lot of "businessy" things.. all of that requires energy, which generates CO2, and only a tiny fraction of it can use "clean" energy.
After a few months or most likely years, you have your CO2 removal plant ready. Yay... In that time, your idea generated tons and tons of CO2 and paper, organic(food, coffee, etc.), and electronic waste.
Now you have a grand opening, the plant begins operations, and you can start removing all of that CO2, your "simple and eco-friendly idea," from the atmosphere. Is it all good, right? You will remove all of that CO2 in no time, and soon after, start removing CO2 other people generate.
But wait. You need to operate this plant.
- maintain it by ordering new parts and replacing whatever breaks - CO2+
- employ people to run the plant. They need to travel to that plant, and they need to communicate, use computers, the internet, etc. - CO2+
- They need to get paid, so you need to start making money or beg for money from nonprofits or governments. All of that begging is best-done face to face, so you will have to fly all over the world - CO2
- roads to your "not so new anymore" plant needs maintaining - CO2+
- these computers your employees use get old, and your employees demand better company phones and new espresso machines. - CO+
- that free, safe, and CO2-negative geothermal energy your plant uses also needs to be maintained, and since your plant uses a lot of that energy, part of that CO2 this maintenance requires is added to your balance.
So that was my original question - when you consider all of the CO2 that these CO2 removal plants generate before they are even operational and all of the CO2 they generate during operation, how long before they are CO2 negative? My guess is never. All these "environmental" projects do is transfer billions of dollars from taxpayers to business owners. That's not how you fix the environment. That's how you destroy it.