[lumost]

As I recall, there are a variety of economical methods to remove carbon. In particular, olivine coating of beaches promises to be both cheap and effective.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90510254/ever-been-to-a-green-sa....

I do not see a world in which all carbon emissions are eliminated, but a net zero world seems to be close. An efficient means of offsetting individual carbon expenditures is necessary for this task.

[MrVandemar]

Olivine? This is mined, which means eco-system destruction from wherever it is being mined from. It means fossil fuel inputs to mine it, process it, transport it. What's the ratio of carbon-stored to carbon-released here? Any studies on the effect of of both marine animals and the beach/dune/fringe dwellers on this?

Economical? Maybe. Actually effective? Doubt it.

People are so in love with the idea of a technical solution, because deep down they don't want to give up their SUVs, their large families, their expensive gadgets and cheap food. It ain't never gonna work that way.

If people were serious about solving the climate problem, they would have smaller families, drive smaller cars, cut-out air travel, stop buying plastic shit they don't need, stop upgrading their phone every year ...

... but I'm not seeing many people doing it. Pretty much nobody in fact.

[lemming]

> Any studies on the effect of of both marine animals and the beach/dune/fringe dwellers on this?

https://www.projectvesta.org are doing those studies, they've been on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20403570, that thread answers a lot of your questions. It's based on very sound-looking science, pioneered by Olaf Schuiling in the Netherlands (see here for more explanations: https://greensand.com/en/pages/werking-olivijn-steen).

> What's the ratio of carbon-stored to carbon-released here?

There's about a 4% loss, mostly due to crushing the olivine and shipping it around. https://projectvesta.org/science/#dflip-df_978/1/.

According to Schuiling's calculations, about 7 cubic kilometres of olivine a year would offset all of humanity's emissions. For reference, the largest mine in the world is the Bingham copper mine in Utah, which is (IIRC) about 23 cubic kilometres. So, it's a lot, but it's within the reach of current technology. Schuiling estimated it would take an industry roughly the size of today's oil industry to operate, probably around a million employees. Again, it's big, but it doesn't require any new magic air-sucking machines or anything like that, it's just what we already know how to do, on a scale that we already do it. And hopefully we'll have lots of coal miners out of work soon who would know how to do it.

[wiz21c]

If it can make your day a little happier: I change car/gsm/whatever when they die and can't be repaired anymore (my PC is 13 years old for example, it's alittle too weak for rust-analyze, but well :-))). I haven't taken a plane in 20 years; use the train when possible. I buy online less than once a year. I don't have a swimming pool.

But I'm not involved in politics, so I don't spend much time on helping others to change. And my house's insulation is not good (old house).

[Reason077]

> “And my house's insulation is not good (old house).”

Depending on where you live and how you heat your house, fixing this one thing might be more effective at reducing emissions than everything else you’re doing combined.

[iinnPP]

Would paying for such upgrades for people who cannot afford them be considered cost effective carbon dioxide removal?

[master-lincoln]

no, because it does not remove carbon dioxide, but prevent future emissions.

[Reason077]

Isn't the net result the same? Is it better to pay (for example) $500 to remove a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere, or to pay $100 to prevent the same amount of CO2 from being emitted in the first place?

If CO2 removal costs us more than emissions reduction technologies, isn't it a false economy?

[h0l0cube]

> olivine coating of beaches promises to be both cheap and effective

The problem with all these novel get-carbon-credits-quick ideas is that they are difficult to verify. How do we know that the outputs aren't taken in by some other ecological process and spat back out as CO2? How do we know the process doesn't reach some saturation point? How do we know how well it generalizes to all coastlines?

... and if we find out 5 years from now that it's bunk, do those carbon credits get revoked?