Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by markkat 2040 days ago
>In the IEA's "Clean Technology Scenario", more than 28 GtCO2 could be captured from industrial facilities between now and 2060.

We emit about 35-40 GtCO2 per year. So in 40 years, we might expect carbon capture to remove less than one year of emissions.

Not useless, but close, considering the investment which could be used instead to more rapidly reduce emissions by installing/improving solar, wind, geothermal, etc.

2 comments

We do need to remove emissions, but we're likely past the point where that will be enough. We've already triggered too many feedback loops. We have to do all the above and more.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-11/sr-cce110520...

TBH I'm starting to come around more to the climate adaptation arguments and drifting away from talks around mitigation and reversal which I'm starting to suspect will remain behind the curve past the timeframe where they could make an appreciable impact.

Which is not to say I'm fatalistic to the point of leaning into continued emissions and taking no action on a personal level - I think all the information needed to make individual change is already known but we're facing the seven stages of grief with regards to the lifestyle sacrifices necessary to make them.

Would the increase in investment have a better chance to facilitate research and development? As with more research comes the possibility of a better capture rate down the road