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Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

Time to quit my job and become an inventor (actually something I thought was a real thing when I was a kid).

My idiot-layman brain says buy it from AirGas or capture from large emitters and pipe it into a geological structures like the do for storing helium. It could probably only get to gigatons if it's worldwide and we have enough geological structures capable of containing it.

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I thought the same thing as a child. Recently I realized that programming and making apps is like being an inventor. When I make applications for other people to use, is that not akin to making some kind of new machine or tool?

I don't really see it the same way. I mean, as an independent project, maybe. Most of us are basically told what to build and largely how to build it too. Someone else invented it and we just build it - we're basically factory workers.

No, because the lynchpin of these physical technologies we need are going to be just that, physical. No amount of neural networking or cryptocurrency mining is going to be anything other than peripheral to the advancements based on basic research in physical science.

If the solution to carbon capture comes from a company like Deepmind (ala protein folding), i'll eat my shoe.

Actually what would be really good is instead of looking at carbon capture you could use that invention brain to find solutions to reduce our emissions.

Carbon neutral or negative alternatives to energy production, concrete production, travel (flight), meat and many others would be incredible.

The best emissions are the ones never emitted in the first place.

Eliminating emissions would be carbon neutral. The competition wants carbon negative solutions for sequestering carbon in the atmosphere or oceans. Sure there are some carbon negative things like the replacement for concrete that reacts with CO2, but the negative impact is not extensible beyond a specific point without better mining/refining tech.

True although I wasn't referring just to the competition - it would be good to come up with sustainable solutions in general.

Yeah, but I'm not interested since the real solutions are generally off limits. The $100M is what I really want (or even $1M would be nice). In fact what i really want is to be employed to enter competitions like this and Gates' toilet competition. I'm just too dumb.

If you find a way please consider me for your team :-)

My current attempt to support projects like these is to make them as accesible as possible on https://carbonremoved.com

You get your $1M and I will include your removal method in our portfolio!

The real issue is consumption. This drives CO2, various pollution, factory farming, deforestation, decline of natural species (eg fish stocks), etc. Some Indian states recently announced efforts to basically cap the number of children at 2. Although China has expanded it's policy from 1 to 2 and is now suggesting that 3 may be ok.

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