Disclaimer: I'm biased because I'm Swiss and so is this technology.
If so, then I disagree that this is a scam. Liquid carbon fuels are going to continue being mission critical for civilization for many decades to come. So much of our infrastructure is built with the assumption of liquid carbon fuels that it's going to take a very long time to migrate completely. And there may be some applications that can never be carbon fuel free.
So, projects like these are still very valuable, because they potentially reduce the need to extract and burn fossil fuels, which necessarily inject additional carbon the atmosphere. Slowly down the rate we add is just as important as permanent capture projects like this one that can actually reverse the trend.
Also, I am increasingly of the opinion that permanent carbon capture tech is absolutely critical to civilization sustainability. I think humans are going to burn every ounce of volatile carbon fuel stored up in the Earth's crust. The incentives to do so are just too great. Converting the excess carbon to a non volatile form is the only way we'll be able to control how much remains in our atmosphere.
Petroleum industry CCS also includes pumping captured CO2 directly into underground reservoirs. Not only is this unstable (it's not chemically transformed), and inefficient (solid chemical forms take less space, less pressure, don't need cooling to remain liquid, etc.), but those reservoirs are typically old oil/gas wells: "capturing" CO2 in those wells will push out any remaining oil/gas, which the company can then sell for burning.
The theory of evolution tells us that over centuries, reproduction rates will not drop.
I think people trying to find anything possible to avoid or alleviate that issue perhaps deserve a bit more consideration of their position and reasoning. Because the U.S, Europe, China and India and Pakistan have a lot of people to prioritize over the rest of the world, and how they decide if and when to adopt provisions may be different than other nations, but they have just as big of sticks to try to protect what they see as their own best course of action.
> But even if that bears out, multiply $100 by even a single gigaton—barely enough to make a dent in our annual emissions—and you’re talking about $100 billion. (The National Academy of Sciences has estimated that by 2050 we need to be removing at least 10 gigatons of carbon. Every year.) That’s on top of the hundreds of billions of dollars that would be required to build the plants themselves.
Big numbers, sure. But if they can hit the promised $100 per ton at scale, and we have to remove 10 gigatons per year by 2050... we're talking like $1T per year in operating costs. That's a bit more than one percent of current global GDP.
Maybe I'm missing something, but for an existential threat, that kinda seems like a pretty good deal? Even if it ends up a couple times that at scale... still a pretty good deal?
Do you have any examples of a successful political solution like the one you describe?
With respect to failures of politics, I would suggest you look to nuclear proliferation. All political solutions to this have been miserable failures.
Massive emissions reductions can also be paired with CDR to have even more impact since reductions alone — basically no matter how steep at this point — are not going to get us to where we need to be.
In any case, at this point even if we stopped emissions tomorrow we'd still need negative emissions to get back to a safe level.
Besides, technology can help us leave fossil fuels in the ground. It's not like all those solar panels and batteries aren't advanced technology.
Although the political influence and PR of incumbent extractive industries is overwhelming, how we talk about climate change in the face of manipulation vs choosing strategies that will have the most significant impacts are different things. We shouldn't let the presence of PR prevent the promotion of effective solutions, especially when current political realities makes the ability to make changes to society very tenuous.
Based on this model, my opinion is that technology is part of the solution to climate change. Degrowth can be part of the solution, but it doesn't necessarily need to be. Perhaps MIT is wrong or has made invalid assumptions, this may be the case, but we can only make decisions based on models, and we have to choose the models we think are valid and use them to focus on what we can promote. I think carbon pricing and carbon removal are possible for society to undertake, I think degrowth will be a hard sell.
Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being. Over the past few years, the idea has attracted significant attention among academics and social movements, but for people new to the idea it raises a number of questions. Here I set out to clarify three specific issues: (1) I specify what degrowth means, and argue that the framing of degrowth is an asset, not a liability; (2) I explain how degrowth differs fundamentally from a recession; and (3) I affirm that degrowth is primarily focused on high-income nations, and explore the implications of degrowth for the global South.
Massive reductions and degrowth are not going to happen in a democracy. People can say they are all for fighting climate change, but the minute the price of gasoline goes up, they are ready to vote out the leaders. Look at the US where Biden's approval rate has an inverse correlation with the price of gasoline.
Look at France and the yellow vest protests.
Expecting people to reduce consumption to fight climate change is like Malthus expecting people to embrace celibacy to combat overpopulation - not going to happen. Thankfully, for overpopulation, safe, cheap, effective birth control (a technological solution) turned things around. We will need the same for climate change.
The caveat is that technology alone can't be expected to solve social-political-cultural issues
How would you suggest to proceed?
I can already hear the "true communism hasn't really been tested yet!"
PS, I love that you’re making that comment using…a technological solution which would’ve been considered wizardry not too long ago.
Carbfix, has been researching the storage part for a while now, and they plan to import CO2 to their facilities in Iceland with tankers from European polluters (crazy idea, but apparently works out).