The best way to sequester carbon is to leave it in the god damn ground.
Please go google climate town talking about clean coal. Carbon capture is a scam.
Please go google climate town talking about clean coal. Carbon capture is a scam.
I am replying to this nonsense:
> are going to continue producing CO2 regardless of what electric grids look in OECD nations.
And historical emissions are relevant, since the carbon budget relates to the total amount of co2 in the air above pre-industrial levels. That co2 budget was largely "spent" by the US.
My point is it is rediculous to argue for geoengineering while pointing your finger at the third world, when the country with the largest historical emissions still relies heavily on coal.
The world the west is confronted with is this: Chinese and Indians want to live like Americans. The legitimacy of the government in places like China and Bangladesh rest on being able to deliver 6-8% GDP growth every year. They won’t do anything to jeopardize that, and we can’t control what they do. So carbon capture is going to have to be a pillar of any climate mitigation strategy.
I think what you're responding strongly to is capturing emissions from point sources where fossil fuels are being burned. I don't think that's a scam either - I'd characterize it as an unfortunate necessity due to path dependency - but it's a very different thing than direct air capture.
> Nobody thinks direct air capture is a scam.
Yes, folks do. points up
Two more examples in this thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37452537
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37452761
As a general rule, "nobody thinks that" or "nobody is saying that" are false -- there are always folks who do, sometimes very vocally. We must stop pretending extremists aren't out there.
But there is an actual and notable difference of opinion between point-source carbon capture and direct air capture among people who work in the space.
I do
Any solution that relies on scarce resources like fertile soil, freshwater or agricultural waste is a scam because it has zero impact at this scale and will never grow beyond that.
In theory, there are feasible solutions that would rely e.g on solar energy and seawater, but I'm yet to see one.
If you people "who works seriously on climate solutions" want to be taken seriously outside of your circle, you first need to call out openly and honestly all the scams in your field.
But since they amount to like 95% of it no one dares to disrupt the flow of money. Basically you're like "people seriously working on mortgage derivative solutions" in 2008.
I didn't say I was one of those people. But the reason the people who do work seriously on climate technology don't consider DAC a scam is not that they are dishonest, it's that it isn't a scam; it's a nascent technology that may not work out, but currently seems promising.
> Any solution that draws electricity from the grid is a scam because it's better to shut it down along with the matching amount of power generation.
The nice thing about connecting things to the grid is that then instead of decarbonizing the energy use of a bunch of heterogenous things, you can focus on decarbonizing the grid, and then everything connected to it benefits at once.
Are you saying all of these people are scammers? Are you saying that they aren’t smart for working on it because the idea itself is a scam?
Saying something is a scam implies it’s completely a scam.
Equating NFTs with attempting to sequester carbon is not an appropriate comparison.
Jokes aside, some organisations exist primarily for the benefit of special interests.
In fact, most organisations serve a special interest, it’s just that in many cases that’s “shareholders” and we’ve all accepted that as a stand-in for “the economy” and call it a good thing.
There are many organisations that exist only to serve some agenda.
Most think tanks, for example. Lobby groups, industry organisations, unions, etc…
Sometimes these interests align with the general public interest but most often they do not. That’s why they need private funding — the public demand doesn’t exist.
Hydrogen power is a classic example. Just look at the companies behind the hydrogen companies and it is all petrochemical giants. They’re simply “greenwashing” their dirty energy.
The people working for these special interest organisations are just like everyone else working for shareholder-owned private profit organisations. They’re not evil, selfish, or deluded. They’re just accepting a salary in exchange for labour.
Think of the employees of Enron or Theranos. They weren’t evil, they were just working for companies that were.