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by nforgerit 1015 days ago
No need to disagree. We’re 100% on the same side. However, the argument of “don’t develop carbon capture because it will divert society from changing” is just stupid. We will need it as much as possible.
1 comments

Sure, probably that was oversimplified. Let's say "don't develop carbon capture before science has found a fundamentally new way to do it without needing a lot of energy".

The Silicon Valley way of "I will throw money at it and develop a product and a whole infrastructure that relies on the fact that some chemist will make a Nobel Prize in the meantime" is honestly a bit ridiculous to me.

It is like developing spaceships to send humanity on another planet without realizing that we need fundamentally new physics if we ever hope to reach even the next solar system 4.5 light-years away.

What's dangerous is that it convinces people that we are "on track" to do it. And actually we could not be further away: we miss fundamental science to go there. It's just that it's easier to do the engineering than to solve the fundamental science problem, and let's be honest, engineers love those problems.