[jeffrallen]

Climeworks' technology is the real deal, and needs to thrive. The only good CCS is 100% carbon negative and sequesters the carbon in chemically stable forms. This is it, and we need more. Petroleum industry CCS is a scam, but Climeworks is not that.

Disclaimer: I'm biased because I'm Swiss and so is this technology.

[anonporridge]

By "petroleum industry CCS is a scam" I assume you're referring to efforts to make fuels from atmospheric carbon, which is only means we burn it again and put it right back in the atmosphere?

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.

[chriswarbo]

> By "petroleum industry CCS is a scam" I assume you're referring to efforts to make fuels from atmospheric carbon

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.

[kornhole]

We hackers like to believe there is a technological solution for everything. These projects feed that delusion. Massive reductions and degrowth are hard for us to accept. This article somewhat fairly explains how extremely impractical and unlikely carbon capture technologies will be. The investments in the technology and the PR around them serve more to feed the delusion and keep us burning as usual.

[eikenberry]

I think you can forgive people for wanting to look for solutions that don't require millions/billions of deaths, as that's the only way you'll see the level of change necessary. It will happen naturally over time as economic levels rise and reproduction rates drop below sustaining. But that will take centuries and lots of resources, so I'm doubtful that is what you are proposing.

[thaumasiotes]

> It will happen naturally over time as economic levels rise and reproduction rates drop below sustaining. But that will take centuries

The theory of evolution tells us that over centuries, reproduction rates will not drop.

[brightstep]

The solution you describe has already been found: stop burning and leave fossil fuels in the ground. Technological solutions are the opposite. They're an attempt to avoid the what everyone already knows is the answer.

[lovecg]

There are millions of people who are not in poverty right now because these fuels are being used. What you’re suggesting will immediately put them back into poverty. A lot of them will probably die of starvation and disease. I don’t think they’ll go down without a fight.

[kornhole]

I can't cite the statistic I read, but it seems very plausible that the wealthiest ten percent of the world's population contribute about fifty percent of the world's pollution. They are going to put up a bigger fight. It doesn't have to be a major fight though. Social pressure can go a long way.

[kbenson]

I think what you call "the answer" is almost definitely going to lead to future large wars. What it really requires is either all nations, at the same time, agreeing to just stop doing things that give them an advantage, or to have people (correctly) view other nations lack of care with regard to the environment as actively hurting them and their future, and be willing to take action over that.

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.

[Sanzig]

I didn't get that impression from the article.

> 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?

[lovecg]

Yeah but it’s way more expensive (in the short term) than doing nothing…

[nickff]

Why do you think the technological solution is less likely to succeed than your 'reduction and degrowth' political solution?

Do you have any examples of a successful political solution like the one you describe?

[pacifist]

Do you have any examples of a successful technological solution? We've never been here before so there are no examples in either category. It's clear that we need massive changes in behavior to stop dumping CO2 and other more potent greenhouse gases, such as methane, into the atmosphere(stop driving, don't fly, and, I'm sorry, no more babies). At 8 billion and counting, we've outstripped the planet's ability to sustain life(see Holocene Extinction Event[1][2]). It's possible we could augment these behavioral changes with sequestering efforts using technology that hasn't been invented or brought to scale yet. We'll see. I would also suggest that you pressure your political leaders but to date that approach seems to be fruitless. Politicians are all talk and no action, especially when it means pushing back against their petroleum industry donors. So we need to take things into our own hands. If we don't, and keep going down this road, we are headed straight for 4+ degrees of global warming and billions of people dead. As well as most other life on the planet. [1] https://rebellion.global/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

[nickff]

Well, Malthus' dismal predictions of starvation were averted through improvements in agricultural productivity. I would say this is a success of technology.

With respect to failures of politics, I would suggest you look to nuclear proliferation. All political solutions to this have been miserable failures.

[drusenko]

Burning as usual is clearly not sustainable. If you think massive degrowth is the only way out then I’m afraid we’re totally fucked.

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.

[DennisP]

I don't see how it's delusional to look for a technological solution to a problem that was caused by technology in the first place.

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.

[brightstep]

The problem with the search for technological salvation is that it allows us to avoid talking about the fact that regardless, we do need to leave fossil fuels in the ground starting yesterday.

[DennisP]

But we can't start yesterday, and leaving them in the ground starting today is too late. So we really have no choice but to figure out how to take carbon back out of the atmosphere.

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.

[vegetablepotpie]

Reducing growth will reduce emissions; however Carbon pricing, reducing methane, and carbon removal will have the most impact on reducing future warming according to the En-ROADS model by MIT [1].

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.

[1] https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html

[downWidOutaFite]

"extremely impractical and unlikely" also describes "reductions and degrowth" solutions. We need people working on all angles, political and technical.

[macanchex]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2020.1...

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.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

> We hackers like to believe there is a technological solution for everything. These projects feed that delusion. Massive reductions and degrowth are hard for us to accept.

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.

[kornhole]

I think you are onto something. Our(US) government and ideologies are on a crash course with reality. The question is which side is more immovable.

[dr_dshiv]

Technology is the problem, so how can it be the solution, amirite? Except — there are so many other cases where improved technology fixes technological externalities.

The caveat is that technology alone can't be expected to solve social-political-cultural issues

[908B64B197]

> Massive reductions and degrowth are hard for us to accept.

How would you suggest to proceed?

I can already hear the "true communism hasn't really been tested yet!"

[bamboozled]

How do you quantify the limits of technological solutions?

PS, I love that you’re making that comment using…a technological solution which would’ve been considered wizardry not too long ago.

[GunnarSturla]

One note about Climeworks is that Climeworks only operates the carbon capture part of CCS. Climeworks can not store the carbon themselves so they rely on re-use of the carbon, or buying storage from other companies, mostly Carbfix (afik).

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).