> Tarek Soliman, a London-based climate change analyst at HSBC Global Research, says the launch in Reykjavik is not the sort of “quantum leap” that would prove the technology can reach the scale and cost required to have a real impact on climate change.
However, we have only a very short amount of time to operationalize a way to store gigatons of carbon per year, because after 2050 it is necessary to stop the worst effects of climate change.
This Climeworks project is helpful for learning costs of this particular technology. But we had better find something with a really fantastic learning curve, where scaling the industry makes it really cheap, otherwise we will fail at our goals in the future.
It's hard enough to imagine any country paying for their past emissions from 2050 out, in the form of using tech like this to scale. But we must do it. Perhaps there will be a war.
If fusion ever becomes a reality, that can be used to power lots of carbon capture, along with desalination and electrical power plants. Short of that, it will likely require a combination of approaches, including planting more trees, and spreading olivine on beaches.
I suppose major advances in molecular nanotech could perform the carbon capture. That's what Drexler proposed years ago.
Three decades with increasing urgency and likely more government funding can make a lot of progress. I wouldn't be surprised if we do have a major technological breakthrough to mitigate climate change.
Probably not, but at least it's an actual solution to climate change. It's often disliked because it removes the control that people want over society that comes with the spectre of climate change. But of course it's the only real way to deal with it.
I wish governments would stop bickering about political goals, all of which literally do nothing to change CO2 levels, and focus on actually technological goals of pulling CO2 out of the air to meet whatever target is decided. That is the practical solution, but it has no political value, so instead we argue about "science" and try and hamfist socialist politics into every climate change solution.
[+] [-] epistasis|4 years ago|reply
> Tarek Soliman, a London-based climate change analyst at HSBC Global Research, says the launch in Reykjavik is not the sort of “quantum leap” that would prove the technology can reach the scale and cost required to have a real impact on climate change.
However, we have only a very short amount of time to operationalize a way to store gigatons of carbon per year, because after 2050 it is necessary to stop the worst effects of climate change.
This Climeworks project is helpful for learning costs of this particular technology. But we had better find something with a really fantastic learning curve, where scaling the industry makes it really cheap, otherwise we will fail at our goals in the future.
It's hard enough to imagine any country paying for their past emissions from 2050 out, in the form of using tech like this to scale. But we must do it. Perhaps there will be a war.
[+] [-] goatlover|4 years ago|reply
I suppose major advances in molecular nanotech could perform the carbon capture. That's what Drexler proposed years ago.
Three decades with increasing urgency and likely more government funding can make a lot of progress. I wouldn't be surprised if we do have a major technological breakthrough to mitigate climate change.
[+] [-] version_five|4 years ago|reply
I wish governments would stop bickering about political goals, all of which literally do nothing to change CO2 levels, and focus on actually technological goals of pulling CO2 out of the air to meet whatever target is decided. That is the practical solution, but it has no political value, so instead we argue about "science" and try and hamfist socialist politics into every climate change solution.
[+] [-] epistasis|4 years ago|reply
What do you mean by this?