[Lonestar1440]

Among other downsides, spraying sulphur in the atmosphere doesn't remove any Carbon at all. It just tries to balance one pollutant out with another. I'd rather have the sunshade, honestly.

I'm not a physical scientist, but I'd imagine that the amount of Carbon you can capture is fundamentally proportional to the energy you can use on Carbon Capture. That's why I believe a large expansion of Nuclear Energy would be needed.

Alongside a continued reduction in emissions, this is a practical path forward. Throwing new curveballs at the earth, while not addressing the present level of Carbon, is not.

[TremendousJudge]

That's not the point the author is trying to make. What he's saying is, whether you like it or not, it's cheap enough that somebody will do it, either a desperate government or an individual American technocrat.

[tzs]

If I did my back of the envelope math right, direct air capture (DAC) at the currently commercially feasible efficiency, powered by nuclear power could capture annually about as much CO2 as we emit annually if powered by around 2300 large nuclear plants.

It could also be done with roughly a million km^2 worth of solar panels.

I'm curious...do we have the resources to build either that many large nuclear power plants or that many solar panels?