This is cool. CO2 emissions are 36B tons per year. At $100 per ton, it would cost $3.6T to offset assuming you could build enough of these plants. At 4000 tons per year we’d need to build 9 million of these plants.
For reference, there were about 62,500 power plants in existence about a decade ago [1], many probably constructed several decades ago. In 2022, China, the biggest industrial force, constructed an order of 100 power plants [2]. This is for something that people desperately need for our modern life to function.
But suppose, we do go crazy and build in short order 62500 of these Carbon Capture plants, which provide zero benefit to any individual but have positive externalities. That will amount to offsetting 0.69% of current emission rate. Laughable.
It shouldn’t be analyzed (or sold) as a technology that has to solve the whole problem. We need a toolbox of solutions for different geographies, scales and budgets while we also reduce our overall emissions. Having said that, if we reduce emissions by an order of magnitude and improve the efficiency of this process by an order of magnitude then it might enter the ballpark of viability.
It will be more expensive at 36 gigaton scale scale because the supply chain and minerals don't currently exist to support that scale. These prototypes are small enough that they can essentially freeload off of existing industrial supply chains for accounting purposes.
But suppose, we do go crazy and build in short order 62500 of these Carbon Capture plants, which provide zero benefit to any individual but have positive externalities. That will amount to offsetting 0.69% of current emission rate. Laughable.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=28392
[2] https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-...